As a child, I rode The Bus extensively. Uncle Frank's Limo was a fact of life for those of us in the city, in the country who did not have cars. My mom never had a driver's license. The basic necessities of life, we had to get by foot and bus.

But as I got older, finally getting a car of my own at 21, the urge to gas it everywhere became natural. Even getting to UH, just 2 miles away, was always a drive-first mission. It was only because of horrible parking at and around UH -- I spent more time hunting for a parking space and walking a half-mile or more to campus -- that I realized it was so foolish.

That's when I began hopping back on The Bus. If I timed it right, my wait was rarely more than 10 minutes from home to campus. The ride was quick, another 5-10 minutes. Just kick back, catch up on my studying, maybe relax and read the newspaper. By the time I got to class, I was mellow and happy, as opposed to the whole ordeal of driving.

What does this have to do with rail? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. Ideally, West and Central Oahu citizens will take to rail the way folks in Japan and England have always approached fast trains and rail. It's a normal way of life there, but then again, bullet trains are not what the current administration is planning for Oahu.

So I wonder, where will the hundreds of millions -- probably billions -- of dollars come from? It won't all come from the Fed. It shouldn't, though we'd be foolish not to take what we can. The real problem, in a sense, is more than a lack of funding, and I am loathe to saddle the next several generations with billions of dollars of debt because of our foolish baby-boomer mentality of SPEND IT NOW, PAY FOR IT LATER, re: Financial Crisis.

No, the bigger problem and issue are: Do middle-aged people really want to abandon their cars to ride a rail from Mililani and Ewa to downtown Honolulu?

The answer is no, of course. They're spoiled as hell, and as long as gas is reasonable -- below $4 per gallon -- they're all, and I mean ALL going to keep driving and driving, even if traffic on the freeway sucks.

Am I saying that rail is a stupid idea? Well, yes, but no. See, there's a whole new generation of kids coming up who are going to love rail (once it's done). It'll be cool, cheap and compared to the hassles of buying a car, paying for insurance, gas and maintenance, dealing with shrinking parking, rail will really be part of life for the teens and 20-somethings. They'll eventually become the heart of the economy, riding on sleek rail back and forth, morning and night, from one end of Oahu to the other.

That will another 15 or 20 years from now, when all of us who burn fossil fuels and send carbon monoxide into our atmosphere will be gray and wrinkled, some retired, some almost retired. We'll be the old geezers out in the pasture.

So, yes, this is an abysmal idea we cannot afford to pay for. But with some patience, it will be worthwhile, debt be damned. I couldn't see voting for the passage of the rail proposal, not from a common sense/cents point of view, so I didn't vote for it. Why should I? There's no commandment that requires me to vote for something that doesn't make sense for another two decades.

It's like my sister's outlook. I asked why she voted for rail when there's no real way to pay for it. What did she say? "The money will come from somewhere."

Yeah, like 100-dollar bills grow on trees. It's a mentality that has obliterated our economy and created this massive credit crisis. I hate borrowing to begin with, and I hate the system that actually rewards people (short term) for taking out horrendous loans at horrible rates.

Like I've written before, I'm not Amish, but those folks have all the common sense that we as a nation have lacked for too long.

I still believe Oahu was not designed to sustain life for more than 1 million people. We lost control of our Aloha and our true, peaceable way of life when the population hit 700,000. No matter how much we may try to manufacture Aloha, it can't be done when all systems are overburdened. There are just too many cars out there.

All the talk about how it doesn't matter if UH and public/private schools are in session ... total bullshit. I've been driving the freeway for 10 years straight now, picking up my nephew from school across town every school day (almost). In the summer time, there is hardly any traffic, and that's a FACT.

This tells me that Honolulu's gridlock problem is not about the need for rail, but the need to get cars off the road at these optimum times of day. In other words, the real solution, even when rail is complete, is car pooling.

It's a couple of ugly words that nobody wants to hear, but if people are REQUIRED to take their cars off the road by law or car-pool subsidies or some other means, gridlock disappears, just as it does in the summer.

Why is car-pooling so not en vogue? Not sexy? Try not profitable. There are no new jobs associated with something like car-pooling. There's no initiative from the private sector. No epic sense of legacy.

Car-pooling just makes too much sense.

I voted for Mufi. How could I not? The man knows how to manage a lot of stuff, better than anyone out there, and I'm not talking just projects and and budgets. But I've never heard him talk seriously about getting cars off the road via car-pooling. So, strange as it may sound to you, I voted for him and voted against his rail project. He'll run for governor in two years, and that'll go by quickly. By then, the cost projection for the rail project will likely escalate by 10 to 20%. Just my hunch.

I voted for Obama. I don't know if he's ever thought about Honolulu's gridlock. It's not his job, that's for sure. But one thing is for certain: if he can persuade America that change is in the air, maybe it's possible for Oahu residents to get their heads out of the sand and recognize that rail is not the answer. Oh, rail can and will help -- The Bus rider in me knows this. But getting those steel chariots off the roads en masse between 3 and 6 p.m., 6 and 9 a.m. -- that will take real skill and persuasion.

Who will see the sensibility behind the most basic math?

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