RE: TRAFFIC IMPACT FEES (IT-22) Dick Mayer Nov-29-2021
Aloha,
Today's discussion of a Traffic Impact Fee is long overdue and very much deserving of our attention and eventual implementation.
Thank goodness it is arriving on your desks and in your Committee as a draft document because there are a number of errors in the document and a number of items that you will need considered before implementing the proposed legislation.
1. The list of proposed projects is very well done. However, the construction dollar costs are in many cases gross underestimates of the actual eventual construction costs. For example, the estimated cost of the totally new, mauka alignment of the highway from the Pali to Launiupoko will be far greater than $75 million dollars.
2. Many of the proposed projects have district allocations which are incorrect. Two examples:
The intersection of Pulehu Road and Hansen Road gives a low allocation to UpCountry Maui and almost similar allocation to South Maui. South Maui is not the beneficiary of this proposed project.
A second and even more egregious misallocation is for the construction of improvements on Olinda and Piiholo Roads. That is an entirely Upcountry project and should not be placed in the Haiku-Paia district column.
3. This Draft only discusses the initial construction costs of highways and roads and intersections and neglects to point out that thereafter there will be considerable repair and maintenance costs on each of these projects. Somehow, the traffic impact fees must consider this major additional expenditure on these new projects.
4. The use of electric vehicles will increase considerably over the next decade. Consequently, you will no longer be able to rely on gasoline taxes as a revenue source for the construction of roads and highways. Please factor that into your consideration of impact fees and transportation improvements.
Please send this draft report to the MPO for their discussion of the issues which I have raised here and for a recommendation similar to the type of recommendation that you get from the Planning Commission when you send it proposed legislation.
PS If you ask me a question, I will tell you what the Planning Department’s previous Traffic Impact Fee Advisory Committee recommended.
RE: TRAFFIC IMPACT FEES (IT-22) Dick Mayer Nov-29-2021
Aloha,
Today's discussion of a Traffic Impact Fee is long overdue and very much deserving of our attention and eventual implementation.
Thank goodness it is arriving on your desks and in your Committee as a draft document because there are a number of errors in the document and a number of items that you will need considered before implementing the proposed legislation.
1. The list of proposed projects is very well done. However, the construction dollar costs are in many cases gross underestimates of the actual eventual construction costs. For example, the estimated cost of the totally new, mauka alignment of the highway from the Pali to Launiupoko will be far greater than $75 million dollars.
2. Many of the proposed projects have district allocations which are incorrect. Two examples:
The intersection of Pulehu Road and Hansen Road gives a low allocation to UpCountry Maui and almost similar allocation to South Maui. South Maui is not the beneficiary of this proposed project.
A second and even more egregious misallocation is for the construction of improvements on Olinda and Piiholo Roads. That is an entirely Upcountry project and should not be placed in the Haiku-Paia district column.
3. This Draft only discusses the initial construction costs of highways and roads and intersections and neglects to point out that thereafter there will be considerable repair and maintenance costs on each of these projects. Somehow, the traffic impact fees must consider this major additional expenditure on these new projects.
4. The use of electric vehicles will increase considerably over the next decade. Consequently, you will no longer be able to rely on gasoline taxes as a revenue source for the construction of roads and highways. Please factor that into your consideration of impact fees and transportation improvements.
Please send this draft report to the MPO for their discussion of the issues which I have raised here and for a recommendation similar to the type of recommendation that you get from the Planning Commission when you send it proposed legislation.
PS If you ask me a question, I will tell you what the Planning Department’s previous Traffic Impact Fee Advisory Committee recommended.