Tampa Express Lanes Planning Director Corrects Record Distorted By Honolulu City Planner

Over at Peter Samuel’s invaluable TOLLROADSnews, we learn that Marty Stone, director of planning for Tampa’s successful all-electronic reversible tolled Lee Roy Selmon Expressway, has a bone to pick with rail-obsessed Honolulu planner Toru Hamayasu. Specifically, Stone writes [PDF] to the Honolulu Advertiser to correct Hamayasu’s “intentional[] misrepresent[ion of] the facts associated with the cost and operation” of the Tampa toll road. Samuel provides an excellent summary of Stone’s corrections here.

OpenMarket readers may recall Honolulu’s proposed elevated rail project to nowhere. Honolulu suffers from serious traffic congestion problems, yet rail advocates have opted to build a multi-billion-dollar rail transit system that will do nothing to alleviate congestion, will ruin Honolulu’s famous ocean views, and will do little to address existing environmental concerns. The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole has been covering the Honolulu rail project for some time and in great detail. One of the latest galling aspects he flags was a claim made by Honolulu’s transit agency that the 1964 Civil Rights Act required them to issue expensive, pro-rail propaganda.

For more information on Honolulu’s ridiculous planned rail boondoggle, see HonoluluTraffic.com. And here’s a campaign ad from former Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano, who is running for Honolulu mayor, which highlights the absurdity of this project: