July 9th, 2008 kNuke
First off, I have to make something clear. I have nothing against Rail, the technology, or it’s viability. I don’t believe that people will reject the Rail just because they love their cars. Yes, there will be growing pains, but eventually people will ride the Rail. At some point, once the kinks are worked out, it’ll just be easier for a portion of the population to ride the Rail. Now if it’s worth the huge cost, economically, socially, and emotionally; that’s another story, but I digress.
Even though I’m not against Rail as an alternative, I am against it as the choice right now. I don’t think we’ve done enough to exhaust all of our other less intrusive alternatives to Rail. Things like staggering work hours, 4-day work weeks, working closer to home, telecommuting, moving businesses out to Kapolei, and/or moving the entire UH campus out to West Oahu.
Before I move on to our alternative, I’d like to take some time to state that rising oil prices is a great thing for America. Most people understand that oil isn’t going to be around forever, but yet we’ve done very little to develop sustainable energy sources. Rising oil prices are now forcing us to roll up our sleeves and do what we do best, create and innovate! Someone’s moved our cheese and it’s high time we start looking for new cheese. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson. Sustainable energy = Bye Bye War.
Now that I’m done with that, we can move on to our vision; creating a college area out in West Oahu or Kapolei by moving the entire UH campus out there. We could build a new 40k capacity stadium surrounded by skyscrapers, which would house students, food facilities, classrooms, librarys, computer labs, etc. Surrounding the stadium and skyscrapers would be businesses, stores, hotels, bars, restaurants, etc. Students wouldn’t have to leave the area during the work week, everything is right there.
This vision is going to cost a pretty penny, but there are a lot of positives. The state already owns the land in West Oahu so we wouldn’t have to kick people out. UH and Aloha stadium are in dire need of renovations so we can kill two birds with one stone. A college area will make it more enticing for businesses to move out there. There is a lot of infrastructure that has to be built, but it’s only in one area so it won’t affect the beauty of Hawaii or disrupt traffic during the process.
This is our vision, how would you spend roughly $4 billion?
Posted in Hawaii | 1 Comment »
