Wo ai xiang gang

Wo Ai Xiang Gang

Why Hong Kong is better than Hawaii

Now, I love Hawaii, but one of the main problems with it is transportation. Because the majority of people in Hawaii drive, the freeways are packed at rush-hour. For the few people who don’t drive, or are not old enough to drive, getting around Oahu is not the easiest thing. Many of you may say that people can get around just fine on the buses. However, I would have to disagree t on the grounds that the buses are not reliable and that they are not enough to solve the traffic problem. After school one day, a group of my friends and I had planned to take a bus to go see a movie at Ward. The bus that would have gotten us there arrived after we had been waiting for an hour and we were pretty sure that it was scheduled to come at least every 20 minutes.

I was born and raised in Hong Kong, which has a beautiful transportation system. First off, it has a huge number of taxis and buses. The taxis are slightly expensive, though they are incredibly useful. The buses, on the other hand, are dirt cheap, ranging from fifty cents to a dollar per ride. They consist of large double-decker buses, which can sit roughly the same amount of people as the Hawaii buses. There are also “mini-buses” which can seat 28 people and also cost about 50 cents. The thing that sets the Hong Kong buses apart from their Hawaii counterparts is that there are so many more. In Hong Kong, you would never have to wait for more than five or ten minutes for a bus, as compared to the Hawaii standard minimum wait of 20 minutes.

Another masterly crafted example of a transportation system is the “Mass Transit Railway” or MTR for short. The MTR has over 150 stations, and is about one to 3 dollars for a ticket. The construction for the MTR began in 1967, and is still being added to today to improve the service. Now, it isn’t like the Hawaii government isn’t trying to do anything about the traffic. They are currently planning to build a railway system to relieve the strain on the highways. However, I don’t think that the new rail system is the best idea for short term traffic relief. The problem is that it takes time to construct a useful railway system. Even once the first track is built, it will only relieve traffic in the areas that the train services. It took over 40 years for the Hong Kong MTR to reach what it is today, I believe that if Hawaii wants to put a railway in, it is a great idea for the long term. For immediate relief, buses are the best option. Increasing the amount of buses would make taking the bus more convenient through more regular bus routes, which would definitely ease the highway traffic.

I think that we need to act quickly to improve the bus system while working on the train because the increasing population in Hawaii will produce more traffic in the future and if we do not make a start now, it will be impossible to do so later.