08-17-2017, 12:09 PM
When I was in Alaska I remember reading that the ferry system took the majority of the transportation budget but transported the least amount of people, and that was WITH the high fares they were charging.
I understand that Alaska real / Hawaii imaginary ferry systems are apples and oranges but Kalakoa is right, it would be cheaper to subsidize airfare (or subsidize car rentals?) than to start a ferry system. The difficulty in such a subsidy is how to apply it so that Hawaiian airlines and the bureaucrats aren't the only ones who benefit from it. Hawaii missed the boat (no stupid puns intended) when The Early Protectors shut down the first and last attempt for a free-market ferry system unfunded from tax dollars. Nobody will be stupid enough to try anything like that again, and if the bureaucrats try to do something similar, we will wind up with the marine equivalent of the HNL rail system that costs 4 times as much as promised and delivers 10 times less service. And all of us will get our taxes raised to sail a ship around the islands that none of us use.
I took the ferry from Maui to Lanai and back, I affectionately refer to it as my voyage on the Barf Boat. I understand that the trip to or from Molokai is even worse. (The voyage TO Lanai was fine because seas were calm in the morning... on the return trip FROM in the afternoons, not so much). Hawaii doesn't have the calm, protected waters of Alaska's "Inside Passage". It's got rough, puke inducing seas. No thanks, even on a bigger boat. It would have to be a HUGE unaffordable vessel for me to consider it.
So would I support the original Superferry? ABSOLUTELY. None of my tax dollars were harmed in that brutal experiment.
Support the state's "we had no other choice" tax-and-spend version: NEVER.
Is there a third option, tricking another private corporation to fail in this endeavor, would I support that? Sure, but I wouldn't invest in that company. How are the telescope folks doing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry
"Hawaii Superferry was a Hawaii-based transportation company that provided passenger and vehicle transportation between Honolulu Harbor on the island of Oahu and Kahului Harbor on Maui. Legal issues over environmental impact statements and protests from residents of Maui and Kauai temporarily delayed the implementation of service...Ferry operations were suspended in March, 2009 after the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that a state law allowing the Superferry to operate without a second complete environmental impact statement was unconstitutional.[2] The company went bankrupt as a result of these actions preventing service in Hawaii.[3] On July 2, 2009 a Delaware Bankruptcy Court granted the company's motion to abandon both the ships Alakai and Huakai, ending all possibilities that the company might return to Hawaii;[4]
ETA: content, content, content
I understand that Alaska real / Hawaii imaginary ferry systems are apples and oranges but Kalakoa is right, it would be cheaper to subsidize airfare (or subsidize car rentals?) than to start a ferry system. The difficulty in such a subsidy is how to apply it so that Hawaiian airlines and the bureaucrats aren't the only ones who benefit from it. Hawaii missed the boat (no stupid puns intended) when The Early Protectors shut down the first and last attempt for a free-market ferry system unfunded from tax dollars. Nobody will be stupid enough to try anything like that again, and if the bureaucrats try to do something similar, we will wind up with the marine equivalent of the HNL rail system that costs 4 times as much as promised and delivers 10 times less service. And all of us will get our taxes raised to sail a ship around the islands that none of us use.
I took the ferry from Maui to Lanai and back, I affectionately refer to it as my voyage on the Barf Boat. I understand that the trip to or from Molokai is even worse. (The voyage TO Lanai was fine because seas were calm in the morning... on the return trip FROM in the afternoons, not so much). Hawaii doesn't have the calm, protected waters of Alaska's "Inside Passage". It's got rough, puke inducing seas. No thanks, even on a bigger boat. It would have to be a HUGE unaffordable vessel for me to consider it.
So would I support the original Superferry? ABSOLUTELY. None of my tax dollars were harmed in that brutal experiment.
Support the state's "we had no other choice" tax-and-spend version: NEVER.
Is there a third option, tricking another private corporation to fail in this endeavor, would I support that? Sure, but I wouldn't invest in that company. How are the telescope folks doing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry
"Hawaii Superferry was a Hawaii-based transportation company that provided passenger and vehicle transportation between Honolulu Harbor on the island of Oahu and Kahului Harbor on Maui. Legal issues over environmental impact statements and protests from residents of Maui and Kauai temporarily delayed the implementation of service...Ferry operations were suspended in March, 2009 after the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that a state law allowing the Superferry to operate without a second complete environmental impact statement was unconstitutional.[2] The company went bankrupt as a result of these actions preventing service in Hawaii.[3] On July 2, 2009 a Delaware Bankruptcy Court granted the company's motion to abandon both the ships Alakai and Huakai, ending all possibilities that the company might return to Hawaii;[4]
ETA: content, content, content