As Above So Below: Not really

Dear Rider,

In San Francisco, the new Bus Rapid Transit Lanes on US Hwy. 101 are complete, and there will be no transit delays during any of the SOMA Street Fairs at the end of September, or during the Blue Angels Day in October. Why? Because Muni city buses have their own dedicated lane of travel on Van Ness.

Not so below, in Honolulu: The H-1 or Nimitz resemble parking lots in the afternoons on a regular basis.

While San Francisco was in hibernation due to COVID, a funny thing happened on the way to Chinatown. A new underground rail line was finished, connecting the new Mission Bay Development to the old town beyond Union Square. Also, SF’s main North South arterial, U.S. Highway 101 was finally resurfaced after thirty years of neglect and in its place is a new busway to prevent buses from being stuck in traffic.

Just like the unbelievable comment from a passenger, “Turn off the air, it’s too cold in here!” on my second day driving with our new air conditioned buses, (after 20 years of no air) a Muni Diaries’ person commented that the SF Busway is a useless ways and structure because it ‘only saves a few minutes’ of travel time. Not so, my innocent friend. Or at least, until time will tell and reveal the Dao.

The cheaper cost of repaving a boulevard instead of going to the roof with a rail line is a painful discovery found here on the island of Oahu, and not in the Bagdad by the Bay. The Honolulu Area Rapid Transit is anything but, and the overhead right-of-way ends abruptly near Middle Street in the middle of no where. Believe me, the time savings to bus riders on Van Ness will become more apparent when the wheels begin going round and round again–If and when visitors will return to San Francisco. Perhaps I am needed to return to ‘Ess ‘eff with a Douglas MacArthur quote he made in Australia during World War II in 1942. Maybe I should adopt the previous California Governator’s phrase in an Austrian-German accent, “I’ll be bock.”

In any event, traffic on this Pacific Island ain’t going anywhere fast.

It was beautiful to see how fast the Ala Moana Boulevard was repaved. Construction crews worked all night and long stretches of highway were completed seamlessly. Unlike San Francisco’s four inch do-it-over-and-over thin skin of asphalt applied during the day, Honolulu’s paving job will last more than a few months: Too bad there weren’t any bus lanes marked off on the right lanes.

To be sure, the uproar over the ensuing traffic delays would deafening if lanes were cut for transit here on Oahu. Everyone here is ensconced in turnkey service to travel locally in their P.O.V.’s – Personally Operated Vehicles, so the filling up at Costco hasn’t abated, and delays to get across downtown are as if we have learned nothing about what Makka was trying to tell us about our care of Earth.

One can hope we understand Gaia’s anger about her temperature, but I guess we’ll have to have more flooding, famine or pandemic to get our attention about our habits lacking in gratitude and the care of her health and our health. The gentle breezes and rainbow rains make for an easy sway of the palms to forget about summertime heat waves back on the interior of the mainland.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the recent smoke and mirrors green energy inflation bill is a nothing burger, and it would be nice to see baby nukes going up for our grid, a serious start at channeling water from North Lake Michigan to the Salt River in Arizona, but in the meantime, lets add another prescription diet pill to cover our symptoms as we trudge the road of morass mass transit, hoping to make a dent in how we decide to get around town. I’d like to hold my breath like a sea tortoise, but I’m still an energizer bunny burnt-in from the 12 hour ranges on my assigned run.

Hopefully, I, like you, will finally slow down and take a deep breath.

‘Da Bus is hiring here, and if I’ve tried to become anything like an Elder Statesman here on the shores of Kuhio Beach, it would be to do it over again as a bus driver here on Oahu–or for someone in their twenties or thirties to consider being a bus driver here in Paradise. Don’t knock it, it’s a great job–if you know in your heart you’re a driver. You won’t have to go to the mainland to get a better job–‘Da Bus is here and is hiring as seen on the head signs.

The buses here are fast and come a lot, go all the way, and run often. People actually pay their fare, and no one boards at the rear door. The only congestion I face as a pedestrian in Waikiki is in trying to get past surfers carrying surfboards, and tortoises paddling under the waves. It’s like I’ve turned back the clock and gained about 15 years by moving here to Honolulu from Northern California.

There aren’t too many of us odd birds from NorCal. Seems like most people head east when leaving California, but from what I’ve heard, they only create a Bleeding Deacons reaction from the natives, seeded in the winter of Bitcoin discontent.

Mahalo.

Driver Doug