Hundreds of supporters chanting "Go rail go!" took to the streets of Honolulu on 28 February 2012 to make sure Hawaii’s rail project goes ahead.

They condemned the “professional anti-rail critics” who have descended on Hawaii from mainland USA in an attempt to derail the project.

The anti-rail tactic is to insist that road alternatives are better.

Hawaii News Now reported that the demonstration erupted outside a town hall meeting at Kapolei Hale.

"Enough is enough! Let the rail move!" Peter Ganaban of the Hawaii Laborers Union told the crowd. "Take the politics out of the rail and let's move forward. Go rail go!"

His chant was taken up by the crowd.

Maeda Timson of the group Go Rail Go criticised the anti-rail outsiders for trying to interfere.

There were also students from James Campbell High School, who said they were belittled by the anti-rail speakers. Defiant student Bryce Kinley said: "It is our future, and we are well informed."

Rail campaigner Doug Carlson said the anti-rail brigade “shovelled a blizzard of statistics at the audience in their PowerPoint slides” and then reminded us of the book 'How To Lie with Statistics' which has been on American school and college reading lists for decades.

City council member Tom Berg, who organised the anti-rail meeting said the mainland-based speakers paid their own fares to get to Hawaii.

One of them was Wendell Cox, a consultant with “Demographia”, who environmentalists in the USA describe as an "itinerant anti-public transportation gun-for-hire."

He was born in Los Angeles, a city notorious throughout the world for its appalling road traffic and pollution.

Now Honolulu has some of the worst road congestion and highest petrol prices in the USA.

Demographia meanwhile sponsors a website supporting urban tours by hire car!
The “Reason Foundation” was also represented at the anti-rail meeting.

The “think tank” which has listed its funders as including the Ford Motor Co, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, oil giants Exxon, Chevron and Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, Union Carbide, American Airlines and Continental Airlines, has already helped to block the building of a high-speed rail line in Florida by presenting a dubious financial analysis of the project.

To read some common sense about the debate, read Doug Carlson’s pro-rail blog at yes2rail

Official info about the project: HT