ATI The Alliance for Traffic Improvement

Seeking cost effective ways to reduce traffic congestion on Oahu

TESTIMONY BY REP. GALEN FOX,
OPPOSING BILL 40 ESTABLISHING A COUNTY GENERAL EXCISE TAX,
BEFORE HONOLULU CITY COUNCIL, MAY 11, 2005

Chair Dela Cruz and other Councilmembers:

I am shocked by the timing of Bill 40, and its blatant identification as
a 12.5% Excise Tax (GET) increase, tied to an undefined "locally
preferred alternative." Why should the people of Honolulu buy "a pig in
a poke"? We have to pull the pig out of the sack first, and take a look
before spending $150 million a year on it. The legislature wasn't
buying a "pig in a poke." And the Council shouldn't do so either.

In 1990, as Executive Assistant to Mayor Fasi, I supported the State's
effort to help Honolulu build rail transit by providing the City
authority to impose a GET increase for 10 years, enough time to raise
the capital costs for one, double-tracked rail line from Waiawa to UH
Manoa. The City took the time to come up with a workable system, to
attract Federal dollars, to go to the community with a fully-developed
plan, and to bring the community on board before raising the tax.

OK, so the plan failed by one vote. But that Council included two
members who voted against their districts' best interests, against
Leeward and Central Oahu commuters desperate for traffic congestion
relief. That's not going to happen this time.

Since Council has the time to do it the right way-develop a workable
transit plan first, then vote to finance it-why do the wrong thing by
raising taxes first? What guarantee do we have that the City will come
up with a workable plan when the money is already filling your pockets?
What if you just spend the money on busses?

The City is a long way from having a workable transit plan. The biggest
ridership comes from the area between Waiawa and UH Manoa. The profits
to run the system will come from a Waikiki-Airport route. Yet you are
planning to start out in the countryside, from what I have heard, where
your revenue projections, if honest, have to be low. And though traffic
backs up every morning from downtown out to Leeward and Central Oahu,
you are doing nothing to solve the traffic problem at its
source-downtown.

Please pull that pig out and look at it first, then decide whether or
not to buy it. Mahalo.