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OMPO survey shows great public support for HOT lanes:

      Certain items need to be repeated; here's one that we ran on March 15, 2006:  "OMPO has just release the results of a federally funded telephone survey of a random sample of 400 Oahu residents on transportation issues. All questions were designed by OMPO and its consultant team in consultation with Ward Research. Among the more interesting questions asked were:

      Q4a. Would you support construction of an elevated high-occupancy highway for carpools, vanpools, and buses from ‘Ewa to downtown along parts of Kamehameha Highway and H-1?
      Overall 69% for v. 25% opposed. Among Ewa/Leeward residents, 78% for.

      Q4b. If such a project were constructed, would you support making it a high-occupancy toll facility, called a HOT facility? This facility would allow solo drivers to use it if they pay a toll and if the lanes are not fully utilized by high-occupancy vehicles.
      Overall 67% for v. 28% opposed. Among Ewa/Leeward residents, 73% for.

      Q4c. Would you support construction of such a project if the tolls generated were not sufficient to cover the cost and it would require increased taxes?
      Overall 29% for v. 66% opposed.

      Q4e. What is the most you would pay to use HOT lanes if it would save you 15 minutes in travel time? Would you pay...?

      Overall 8% would pay $4 or more, Among Leeward/Ewa residents 20%.

This is a far less biased survey than the one OMPO took in November 2004. However, as we said then, the voters are generally unaware of the costs or benefits of the principal alternatives — rail transit or HOT lanes. Therefore, questions about taxes that do not quantify the tax impact on taxpayers,or the congestion benefits/disbenefits, cannot elicit accurate responses. Second, specifying 15 minutes as the time savings for HOT lanes is unrealistic; it is likely to be more like 30 minutes,or greater, during the rush hour.

      An interesting general result of the survey is that it shows great public support for new highway facilities, such as HOT lanes and widening highways, particularly H-1 from Pearl City to Kahala. There is no support for bikeways. Clearly, our elected officials are out of sync with their constituents because the officials keep opting for bikeways and rejecting building highways whereas the voters think exactly the opposite.  READ FULL SURVEY