Hawaii’s politicians have finally done it. They have put the nail in the coffin for common sense, private business, and legislative action. If you were to ask residents of Hawaii what are issues they find most concerning? Some responses you’d probably hear would be homelessness, crime, drugs, housing, education . For the politicians of Hawaii LimeBike or in Hawaii’s case Lime scooters are top priority.
This is not a complex issue. You have politicians wasting billions of tax payer dollars for an eggs in one basket approach to reduce car use, traffic, and congestion. Multimodal transportation is one of the the ways in which we can reduce these issues. Obviously we are not going to be riding a lime scooter with 4 people from Waimanalo to Waianae.
What Lime is providing, however, is a private business solution at an extremely low cost and at no cost to us the taxpayers. They are providing a solution for the last mile dilemma, and for short trips that otherwise might have used a car. They are cheap, easy to use, and don’t require government subsidies, grants, or taxes.
Hawaii’s legislation has driven small and private business out of the islands in favor of regulations and taxes. Regulations and taxes that only hurt the very people they are intended to help. Regulations and taxes that favor government intervention, state control, and big business.
Due to rising costs the rail should not go beyond Kalihi as those cost will rise tremendously within urban Honolulu. We can begin to take steps, measures, and legislative action within the current budget and framework to reduce, improve, and ease traffic and congestion. The issue however is that we have a political body that does not seek to do the aforementioned but instead only looks to increase taxes and be ineffective with layers of legislation and regulation.
We need to fix Hawaii’s roads, expand them, add more bike lanes, redesign the bus network. Houston, Texas along with its rail project redesigned its bus network at a 4% increase equaling $12 million to its bus operations budget along with ridership increasing. Nashville voted against building rail due to the heavy tax burden. This goes back to not just electric scooters but also bike share programs.
Its simple, we can allow politicians to spend millions in fixing the roads, improving the infrastructure, allowing private businesses to provide solutions for cheaper at no cost to the taxpayer. Or we can continue to spend billions on a failed rail projects and government grants for Biki.
Why this is critical to the Lime issue is because if we allow politicians and a vocal minority to hijack and navigate the conversation in a negative way then we will continue to get bad results.
Elected officials cite ADA concerns at bus stops, safety issues, regulations, licensing, and the legality of Lime. They are using police resources to pickup inanimate objects. Think about it. When crime was rising in Waikiki Mayor Kirk Caldwell simply said Waikiki is a safe place. When homeless camps pop up overnight in public parks do we see this fast of a response? Or the citing of legality and safety in order to justify the use of police resources? When people find dirty needles in public parks and spaces do we see this type of swift action?
The bicycle registration was enacted in response to a surge in bicycle thefts, rather than simply taking a hard stance on crime. Rather than punishing the criminals the political body punished the hardworking taxpayers by implementing a costly useless registration. Politicians raised the threshold level for felony theft. Did it lower thefts? Have the millions collected from car, bike, motorcycle, and moped registration gone to more policing, improving roads, punishing criminals?
Lime is crucial because it’s were the people of Hawaii can draw the line with the regressive ideology that plagues Hawaii’s political landscape. Contact your local representative wether you are for or against Lime or any of the issues mentioned. Let you representative know that there are more pressing issues than electric scooters. That police resources should go towards protecting & policing neighborhoods not penalizing and jailing people for riding a scooter.