King Street Bike Lane Boondoggle User Numbers

 

I read in Tuesday's newspaper that the latest survey by the City and County of Honolulu's Department of Transportation shows that an estimated 700 bicyclists use the King Street Bike Lane on business days.

Let's assume those are 700 unique bikers, not 350 in the morning and 350 in the afternoon.

Before the bike lane was opened in August 2014 at a cost of $100,000.00, the DOT estimated fewer than 400 bicyclists used the same route to get to and from downtown Honolulu.

Therefore, the new bike lane now benefits only 300 more commuters (an increase over nearly 2½ years) at an approximate cost to taxpayers of $333.33 per additional user. That's money you and I gave the city so the 700 bikers could breeze along nicely while we now have to deal with heavier afternoon pau hana (after-work) traffic.

I was hoping to see thousands making use of the bike lane every morning and every afternoon to make it worthwhile. But that hasn’t happened.

And, the city is planning to install bike lanes on South Street, the Ala Wai, and McCully Street soon. I wonder if they’ll make them as wide as the King Street one? I do know street parking will be severely curtailed and possibly eliminated when the new lanes go in.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the King Street Bike Lane is a boondoggle that wasted taxpayer money to benefit just a few of our fellow citizens, and it aggravates the hell out of afternoon drivers heading out of town on King Street.

 

But nobody in power seems to be listening, or to care.