Tunageddon Revisited

We have all heard a lot of doomsday prophecies about the death of the oceans and the immanent collapse of all fisheries in this century. The principal prophet of doom recently published an article in the 31 July 2009 issue of the popular magazine Science that acknowledges that fisheries can be managed. All you need is some credible stock assessments and some managers willing to decide in favor of sustainability. The trouble is that most jurisdictions have neither.

The first author of this paper, Dr,. Boris Worm, was also a coauthor, with the late Ransom Myers, of the 2003 paper that attempted to show that tuna populations had decreased by 90%. That paper was wrong in just about every way it is possible to be wrong. If it had been submitted as an exercise in a beginning fisheries class, it would have received an F. Yet Nature magazine published it. See the whole sorry saga. Some of the many well managed and non-collapsed fisheries included in Worm's most recent emission are tuna fisheries. I'll leave it to the reader to imagine whether the 2003 paper is discussed.

Alarmist junk science, such as that perpetrated by Nature magazine in 2003, does a great disservice to the cause of sustainable resource management. It undermines the credibility of serious scientists (and thereby encourages fisheries managers to do nothing). It instills a sense of helplessness and dread in the general public (and therby fosters widespread indifference). Worst of all, no practical solutions are offered to redress the situation. I guess the intent is to mobilize public support for some cause or other. But I haven't seen any improvement in tuna fishery management since 2003; if there has been any change, it as been for the worse.

Nature magazine should repudiate the 2003 paper. It clear the air for a more constructive debate tuna fishery management. It would also probably sell a lot of copy.

Honolulu Traffic

I started drafting this post in October 2008, before the last mayoral election, and never quite got around to finishing it because I really could not make up my mind about transit issues. Sometimes one needs to get away from home to see it clearly. I'm finishing this post from Toulouse, France. This is a city of about 1.1 million people, slightly more than Honolulu (905,000 according to the US Census Bureau). Toulouse has several university campuses, shopping areas, and and three (soon to be four) automated light rail metro lines. The metro runs on-time and goes to places where people want to go. The cost is about the same as a ride on The Bus. Also, Toulouse has made commitment to bicycles. There are bike lanes all over the city and easily available bike rentals.

So, here is what I was thinking last October tempered by what I see here in Toulouse.

Any one who drives, even occasionally, in Honolulu complains about the traffic. Potential solutions to the problem will be hotly debated by the candidates in current mayoral election.

Incumbent mayor, Mufi Hannemann, is a strong proponent of a rail system. Mayor Hannemann's opponent, Ann Kobayashi, is a strong poponent of ... Well it isn't exactly clear what Ms. Kobayashi supports, but she doesn't like trains much.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, new large-scale mass transit solutions lie in the (possibly distant) future. Traffic problems are with us right now and will worsen during the time it takes to implement large-scale solutions. So what do we do in the meantime?

In a simplistic sense, the cause of all traffic problems is simple: too many cars for the current roads to handle. So in the same simplistic sense, the solutions are also simple:

1. Build more roads. Probably not a viable solution. Oahu is a small island and there are better uses for land than paving it.

2. Make better use of the existing roads. There are lots of ways to improve circulation on our existing streets.

• Require schools, both public and private, to provide school bus service so that working parents don't need to drop their children off at school on their way to work.
• Realign some famously congested intersections to reduce gridlock, for example, the mauka end of Piikoi where it meets the freeway.
• Change laws to make it illegal to enter an intersection on a yellow light.
• Enforce traffic laws; ticket drivers who run red lights or block intersections.
  
• 
  

2. Reduce the number of cars on the roads. To some extent, rising fuel costs are already reducing the number of cars on the road. Other, but extremely unpopular, measures could reinforce this trend.

• Increase tax on gasoline.
  
• Increase tax on new car sales.
• 
  

3. Encourage the use of public transit. Honolulu has an excellent bus system. More people might use it if it were improved.

• Reduce fares (subsidized with increased gas taxes)
• Improve bus shelters. Many bus stops have no shelter and are very close to the roadway, making waiting for the bus hot (or wet), unpleasant and risky.
• Encourage employers to issue bus passes to employees.
• Encourage the University of Hawaii to issue bus passes.
  
• Improve bus schedules to reduce waiting times
• 
  

4. Encourage the use of bicycles.

• Make bike lanes
• Offer convenient, inexpensive bike rental stations
• 
  

In the long run we must build a mass transit system in Honolulu. I have lived or visited in may cities with excellent metro systems and have used these systems both as a resident and as a tourist (eg New York, Washington DC (population 600,000), London, Paris, Tokyo, Bangkok, San Francisco, Toulouse). There is absolutely no doubt that transit systems greatly enhance the livability of these cities. Indeed, life in these cities would be much more difficult without them.

How will life be in Honolulu in ten years if we do nothing now? Mayor Hannemann's proposed rail system is work examining, but it is not a great plan. It neglects at least three places were people need to go: Waikiki, the airport, and UH Manoa. The process that led to the currently proposed alignment lacked transparency. The plan is also very expensive.

If we do nothing to improve traffic in Honolulu the mayoral election and debate will be just more low sparks of well-heeled boys.