Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / DTS Deputy Director Hong Li on a new leadership role, safer streets, and driverless technology

Transcript

DTS Deputy Director Hong Li on a new leadership role, safer streets, and driverless technology · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:14
  Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
• 0:16
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, February 26th, 2026.
• 0:22
  And we're joined this week by the new deputy Director
• 0:24
  for the city's Department of Transportation Services, Hong Li.
• 0:27
  Deputy Director Li.
• 0:29
  Thank you so much for making some time.
• 0:31
  Morning, Brandi. Thank you for having me.
• 0:33
  Have you got used to that, deputy director?
• 0:35
  Not yet. I'm learning.
• 0:37
  So, Hong, first off.
• 0:39
  Tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 0:40
  Where did you grow up?
• 0:42
  Where did you go to school? All of that?
• 0:45
  Well, I did not go
• 0:47
  to, local high school here.
• 0:50
  I I'm a transplant to Hawaii.
• 0:53
  I was, born and raised in, northeast part of China.
• 0:58
  My hometown's about, a medium population.
• 1:01
  Heavy industrial city.
• 1:04
  I grew up, you
• 1:05
  know, city, less than 300 mile from North Korea.
• 1:09
  Border.
• 1:11
  The weather is more like,
• 1:13
  I think it's more like Boston.
• 1:16
  Cold winters and cool summers.
• 1:19
  I came to Hawaii in 1998.
• 1:23
  When I was 26 years old
• 1:26
  to study, the PhD program at UAH.
• 1:30
  I have called Hawaii home since then.
• 1:34
  There's no other place in the world I know better.
• 1:38
  And so why transportation?
• 1:40
  Where did the interest and passion in transit begin for you?
• 1:44
  Well, how do I got into transportation?
• 1:47
  It's almost like a fluke.
• 1:50
  Okay, so it started,
• 1:53
  you know, in my high school year in China.
• 1:56
  Remember, this is, about 40 years ago in China.
• 2:00
  China was a different country.
• 2:03
  And the choosing a major
• 2:05
  is almost like a prison arranged marriage.
• 2:08
  Once you choose your track, you expected to stay on track.
• 2:13
  You cannot really change that.
• 2:15
  So I still remember that day there was, like a,
• 2:19
  I think the cold and snowing.
• 2:21
  So all the so since so sad already.
• 2:25
  It was not sad.
• 2:27
  It's just interesting. Kind of memorable.
• 2:30
  So I was looking at all the college poster
• 2:33
  displayed behind a glass window, and it was overwhelming.
• 2:38
  I, I know I, I would have got into,
• 2:42
  some kind of engineering.
• 2:43
  I just didn't know which one. Okay.
• 2:47
  So then one photo and I called my
• 2:49
  I was, follow.
• 2:52
  You know, from a college in a photo shows,
• 2:56
  school cafeteria is serving, dinner.
• 3:00
  On the table, there's a big tray of sweet
• 3:02
  and sour spareribs, and I couldn't walk away.
• 3:06
  I just look about, you know, what college Lee says?
• 3:10
  What programs belong to.
• 3:12
  It turns out it's a newly created a major called, transportation engineering.
• 3:18
  Then that's how I got into transportation.
• 3:21
  Are you hungry?
• 3:22
  I was not hungry.
• 3:23
  But that time, you know, I, you know, as a teenager,
• 3:27
  you just couldn't couldn't walk away from Spareribs.
• 3:31
  So you went into that.
• 3:33
  And then how did your passion, your interest, your experience
• 3:37
  kind of grow where you were like, okay, this is something that I'm actually into.
• 3:40
  Yeah.
• 3:41
  So from that point on I want to, college
• 3:44
  in, Qiang China.
• 3:47
  Then I know learning you know,
• 3:49
  the highway pavement design, then transportation engineer.
• 3:52
  Transportation engineer is really unique as a as a part of the civil engineer.
• 3:58
  It has you know, a lot of human factor, right?
• 4:02
  And I learned through the years it make a real impact to the people.
• 4:07
  You know, it changed people's life.
• 4:10
  That's a part I feel is really rewarding.
• 4:12
  As I as a time going, I felt this is really something I want to do.
• 4:17
  And, and and, you know, there's all the people
• 4:20
  really, you know, people's daily life depending on what they do.
• 4:24
  Yeah.
• 4:25
  So you mentioned, when you came to Hawai'i, but
• 4:28
  how long have you been here with DTS and what was your role prior to this?
• 4:33
  So I've been with DTS for a little bit
• 4:37
  more 11 years.
• 4:40
  My job in my position is really to,
• 4:43
  convert visions into reality.
• 4:46
  I carry project from, you know, cradle to grave yard.
• 4:50
  You know, in the profession, we call it a planning design, construction,
• 4:54
  some some part of its operation and maintenance.
• 4:57
  But we want to make sure we build a project.
• 4:59
  You know, we all support the skyline.
• 5:02
  My job is really identify the first mile.
• 5:05
  Last mile discrepancy.
• 5:07
  The missing link between, between
• 5:10
  people's, daily life to the skyline.
• 5:13
  So there's some representative project we have done in the past.
• 5:18
  One of them is, I think where I park with transit center
• 5:22
  that was rebuilt, about five years ago
• 5:25
  to, you know, make the bus rail transfer.
• 5:30
  You know,
• 5:30
  will work better for, for for Waipahu.
• 5:33
  And another project we did is, colicky mall in Chinatown
• 5:37
  that was opened, about two years ago.
• 5:41
  And I feel really fortunate in deed here.
• 5:43
  I, I was surrounded by, high performing team over here,
• 5:48
  not only in DTS, but also across the city.
• 5:51
  You know, we got supports, really strong support from our sister
• 5:55
  agencies such as Dia, from, DDC and DPP.
• 6:01
  We also formed, very strong partnership with our counterpart,
• 6:06
  fDOT on a state level.
• 6:09
  I would say now we have really perfect alignment with Wahoo MPO as well.
• 6:14
  And I think always really strong partnership.
• 6:17
  We were able to deliver some successful projects.
• 6:21
  Yeah, I like that.
• 6:22
  You mentioned that, you know, from start to finish
• 6:24
  and DTS really has some exciting milestones that they've reached recently.
• 6:28
  Skyline nearly 13,000 weekday riders.
• 6:30
  When you see numbers like that, when you
• 6:32
  hear people enjoying it using the systems that you saw from its infancy.
• 6:36
  What does that mean to you?
• 6:37
  Have you have you, taken?
• 6:39
  I have, I actually have taken it. Not with work.
• 6:42
  I took it like to get to somewhere recently.
• 6:45
  I mean, I haven't heard anybody tell me about experience and skyline.
• 6:50
  That's that's really important.
• 6:51
  I think that's really play to the number. You're talking about.
• 6:55
  We recently raised our record,
• 6:58
  ridership, number and continue trending up.
• 7:01
  That's really important.
• 7:03
  Our park and ride, you know, start, I heard report list
• 7:07
  raising the capacity, which is a good sign to us.
• 7:12
  And I think skyline will eventually be more popular
• 7:15
  than most transportation model can predict.
• 7:20
  The reason I'm saying that is, you know, this is my personal experience.
• 7:24
  My brother in law recently visited us.
• 7:28
  So we, of course, we recommend him to take on the skyline visitor.
• 7:33
  From where though? From from China. Okay.
• 7:35
  So there's obviously really, you know, mass transit oriented population.
• 7:40
  You know,
• 7:41
  you see a lot of Japanese visitor I think there's a lot of joy ride on
• 7:45
  those trains.
• 7:46
  And he came back with this incredible sunset photo from the train.
• 7:52
  And these are the things we don't really talk about a lot.
• 7:55
  The view of our skyline to the ocean, to the Makai, to the mountain.
• 8:01
  And and then he posted it on social media
• 8:03
  and were spread out really fast.
• 8:06
  I think these are the things people start to, you know, talk about a lot.
• 8:11
  Everybody have got experience.
• 8:13
  And I think beyond the ridership, there are, another number I'm
• 8:17
  proud of kind of let's talk about which is a on time performance.
• 8:23
  We're looking at anywhere between 97 and 90 night,
• 8:27
  in the beginning of the phase two opening.
• 8:30
  We had we run you about a 99%
• 8:33
  and and then I, as we running more trains, the numbers started settle around 97.
• 8:39
  Some of our staff got deflated a little bit late for.
• 8:42
  Oh. We job down to that is seven.
• 8:44
  And I have to put this in a bigger context to them that if you look at it
• 8:49
  on the national level, a lot of compared to a lot of other transit agency
• 8:54
  and people are running at 60% to 80%.
• 8:59
  90% is pretty good
• 9:03
  and 97% is, the of the industry.
• 9:07
  I think a lot of other transit agency transit operator
• 9:10
  they are they in for the number we hiring right now?
• 9:13
  Oh yeah. So that's really important.
• 9:16
  And and I think, you know,
• 9:19
  another thing I want
• 9:20
  to mention is all these numbers, at least 97, 99
• 9:25
  is only possible because skyline is fully automated
• 9:30
  and also almost entirely elevated.
• 9:33
  And and is a first
• 9:36
  fully automated system in United States.
• 9:39
  Is is really new technology and really reliable.
• 9:45
  And also remember the big debate,
• 9:48
  back then back around 2010.
• 9:51
  You know, people ask us why skyline was not built at grade, right?
• 9:55
  This is the why.
• 9:57
  You know, we're going after safety and performance reliability.
• 10:02
  You know, this is how we got, you know, got it here today.
• 10:06
  Yeah.
• 10:06
  I want to go back to something else you mentioned kick out like a mall.
• 10:10
  You know, for those who frequent the area, you know, they knew that
• 10:13
  there are some issues, like when it rained or or just,
• 10:16
  you know, when it comes to just optics and what it looks like.
• 10:18
  So can you talk about the improvements
• 10:20
  that were made there and kind of the genesis,
• 10:23
  where did that start and how did that get going?
• 10:25
  Yeah. So,
• 10:27
  so we started the
• 10:28
  project, as you know, outreach efforts with to as a community.
• 10:33
  We went out.
• 10:35
  We said we hope,
• 10:37
  2 or 3, at least 2 or 3 public meeting.
• 10:39
  We try to listen, you know, while the community come forward to tell us.
• 10:45
  One of the issues, as you mentioned, the drainage issue, right.
• 10:48
  College Mall was built.
• 10:49
  The utility was put in mostly in 1960,
• 10:53
  and the mall was built in 1990.
• 10:56
  So it's really old.
• 10:58
  A lot of issues.
• 11:00
  One of them is drainage.
• 11:02
  Then the landscaping.
• 11:03
  The tree, is not in the best condition.
• 11:06
  Some of them has a hazard, and they also not aligned.
• 11:11
  Doesn't provide enough shade for the community.
• 11:13
  Is really hot during the day.
• 11:16
  We also looking at the lighting, system, the electrical system was really old,
• 11:22
  in need of, major repair.
• 11:25
  The paver pay were always an issue.
• 11:28
  We got to report people trip over from, lose power.
• 11:33
  So we had a lot of discussion with the community
• 11:36
  and offered at least 3 or 4 different alternatives.
• 11:41
  So while we said, oh, is we want to do a stand concrete project.
• 11:44
  So this is a large stamp concrete project in the city right away.
• 11:49
  Which, you know, you don't need to pay work on a low maintenance.
• 11:53
  You can do the power wash.
• 11:55
  And the community made it.
• 11:58
  Made it loud and clear.
• 11:59
  They want, you know, some kind of color.
• 12:01
  They just don't want to see the concrete.
• 12:03
  Ugly concrete.
• 12:03
  So would make it, the right color for them.
• 12:06
  We also talked to another interesting element is a dragon.
• 12:10
  Yeah. Detail the circle. It's dragon decals.
• 12:14
  So the dragon used to be, King Street.
• 12:18
  And and, there's a lot of discussion about the high maintenance of the Dragon area.
• 12:23
  I read a couple years because the traffic dragon kind of faded away.
• 12:27
  And also the location, you know, it's become really hard to maintain.
• 12:33
  We talked to the community.
• 12:34
  Community leader like Lan Quan, and she was really helpful, cuz
• 12:39
  at some point, her on these and we told her, do you mind?
• 12:43
  We maybe we invite Dragon from the street to the center of the mall.
• 12:48
  So the you know, the mall had the owner now?
• 12:51
  Yeah.
• 12:51
  So she was very, very happy with the idea.
• 12:54
  So as you know, we make the dragon bigger and brighter.
• 12:58
  And that's also a highlight of the project.
• 13:01
  Yeah. So,
• 13:02
  yeah, change is electrical improvements and all the utility that was redone.
• 13:06
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:08
  That's great.
• 13:08
  Hong, you know, I just want to get.
• 13:11
  What was your reaction when you're tapped to serve as deputy?
• 13:14
  You've worked on so many projects, but then when asked
• 13:16
  to kind of take this new leadership role, what was your reaction?
• 13:20
  So why at
• 13:21
  first approached by our director, Roger Martin,
• 13:25
  about, serving as a deputy director?
• 13:29
  I was, honored and humbled at the same time.
• 13:36
  He talked to me about his three legs.
• 13:39
  Leadership's three legged stool leadership.
• 13:42
  Right.
• 13:43
  So, what is important is, you know, we joked,
• 13:48
  we didn't throw our former deputy director, John Lewis under the bus.
• 13:53
  We put him on top of the bus.
• 13:55
  So he he gonna be our leader,
• 13:58
  in the in a in his eyes, you know, the,
• 14:03
  operation leader for Skyline and Bus.
• 14:06
  Yeah.
• 14:07
  And I, I couldn't imagine another people more qualified, more experienced than him.
• 14:12
  From DC.
• 14:14
  So he's the right place.
• 14:16
  And, Roger, our director, Roger Martin, continue to be,
• 14:21
  responsible for the overall direction of des.
• 14:25
  Also, the, policy and the legislative matters.
• 14:29
  My focus gonna be more on engineering's,
• 14:32
  infrastructure and, capital improvement projects.
• 14:36
  So I was fully convinced
• 14:39
  by Roger, you know, these three next, stool leadership would work.
• 14:44
  And I think we complement each other.
• 14:46
  We promised, a mayor named, you know,
• 14:50
  we got this gonna be a really,
• 14:53
  seamless transition from the past.
• 14:55
  And we're all feel good about it.
• 14:57
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 14:59
  Yeah.
• 14:59
  I mean, sticking with that responsibility that I know you're taking on.
• 15:03
  This is a difficult question.
• 15:04
  I've asked Director Martin this.
• 15:06
  I've asked on the AG.
• 15:07
  This, and I've even asked Rene SBL.
• 15:10
  But as of this recording,
• 15:11
  seven traffic deaths so far this year, which puts us on pace with last year,
• 15:15
  which was a record year, a terrible number to report, but a record year.
• 15:19
  And so how do we bring this number down?
• 15:21
  Is it more like trying to influence driver behavior, or are the design features
• 15:25
  that can change here in the city,
• 15:27
  or what's it going to take to bring down the number of traffic fatalities?
• 15:31
  I think it's going to take
• 15:32
  everything we talk about over here is is not only one thing.
• 15:36
  You know, we personally you know, when people think about traffic crash, right.
• 15:41
  It's it's tragic.
• 15:43
  And how do we got there is very important.
• 15:46
  I think there are three things in play.
• 15:48
  Number one is the human factor.
• 15:51
  And secondly, as a vehicle, you are in,
• 15:54
  and third is a roadway infrastructure.
• 15:57
  We looking at all the three different, you know, elements,
• 16:01
  Holly interplay, which you saw there apparently does.
• 16:04
  We have a big responsibility for the city road
• 16:08
  and our department, has a lot of,
• 16:11
  Company Street initiative, and we're going out.
• 16:15
  Look at, the data and the speeding data and the crash data.
• 16:19
  How can we make, transportation be more multimodal?
• 16:23
  Yeah.
• 16:23
  How can make the cars and pedestrian, the,
• 16:27
  bicycle coexist in the limited right of way?
• 16:30
  That's the things we're looking at.
• 16:32
  And I think couple of weeks ago, we have this exciting,
• 16:37
  project on de Street and McCauley area.
• 16:40
  We had a big community meeting.
• 16:41
  Everybody come all they tell us, you know, what they want to do.
• 16:45
  I think that's the direction we're heading to.
• 16:48
  But, you know, this doesn't take the personal responsibility
• 16:52
  away from the people behind the oil.
• 16:54
  This is really important.
• 16:56
  I think right now, we in a time, everybody's rush.
• 17:01
  Anything. Right. It's a social media time.
• 17:05
  There's no focus.
• 17:06
  I think when you sit behind it.
• 17:09
  Will it require it? Require.
• 17:12
  You'll pay attention.
• 17:13
  You're operating a 5,000 pounds a machine.
• 17:16
  You need to be responsible.
• 17:17
  I think that part needs to be emphasized as well.
• 17:20
  Yeah.
• 17:21
  What about if we take the human element out?
• 17:24
  And this is kind of a weird question, but, I mean, I'm in Vegas often,
• 17:27
  so I see those driverless taxis going down the strip.
• 17:30
  Where are we or where do you think we should be or could be
• 17:34
  when it comes to driverless technology?
• 17:36
  Here in the city of Cardiff, one of the
• 17:38
  you read my mind is that's something I want to talk about.
• 17:41
  Okay.
• 17:41
  I think, you know, we we have entities
• 17:44
  we we monitoring what's going on.
• 17:47
  On the continent, we this is a coming
• 17:50
  like in the, autonomous vehicle is something I've been,
• 17:55
  doing some of
• 17:55
  my home work on this for many, many years.
• 17:59
  I think more and more it's become a reality.
• 18:03
  I, I, I would think, you know, this is an autonomous vehicle,
• 18:07
  probably the first AI application we're going to see.
• 18:11
  We talk about artificial intelligence a lot.
• 18:14
  I think autonomous vehicle is really come to reality.
• 18:20
  I want to, Los Angeles, San Francisco.
• 18:23
  And you mentioned Las Vegas, Arizona, as well.
• 18:27
  And, and, I was saying this, this autonomous vehicle
• 18:31
  going to be have a profound impact on how we travel.
• 18:37
  And, and a lot of it come with a lot of high expectation.
• 18:41
  Right.
• 18:42
  And and the promise is it would take away,
• 18:47
  take away the human factor in this.
• 18:51
  But I think it's going to be a process I don't see overnight.
• 18:54
  Everybody can jump into autonomous vehicle.
• 18:57
  They're going to be a long period of time.
• 18:59
  We're going to see autonomous vehicle on the road.
• 19:01
  But same time we have the conventional cars on the road.
• 19:05
  So how are they going to coexist Harley.
• 19:07
  Going to interact with the other is something we need to really looking into
• 19:13
  I think is also can be a really, complimentary element
• 19:18
  to our mass transit system, to our skyline.
• 19:22
  We always struggle to find the best
• 19:25
  first mile or last mile connection to the rail.
• 19:29
  This could be the, you know, the it's part of the equation, right?
• 19:33
  So I'm kind of excited and I'm, I look forward to to that day.
• 19:38
  I mean, yeah a telling on that.
• 19:41
  You know you mentioned cities like Los Angeles.
• 19:43
  You've also been to Arizona when it comes to public transportation.
• 19:46
  Is there a city that you've maybe lived in or traveled to,
• 19:51
  maybe like you're on vacation and you're like, you know what,
• 19:53
  I love what they're doing here.
• 19:55
  I want to mimic that, you know, just like ultimate model City
• 19:59
  when it comes to public transit, bike friendly transportation,
• 20:02
  anything like that that you want to model.
• 20:05
  Well, I, I think you probably heard our,
• 20:09
  rail system kind of modeled after Vancouver's Skytrain.
• 20:14
  It's fully elevated.
• 20:15
  It's connecting community.
• 20:17
  I think a lot of city, you know, we actually a hideout
• 20:21
  in terms of public transit.
• 20:23
  Honolulu is actually a of a lot of other major cities in the United States.
• 20:28
  But look, look at other countries.
• 20:30
  I think, you know, cities in Japan, cities
• 20:34
  in Asia, like Hong Kong, Singapore, and also, you know,
• 20:38
  some cities in China has really high mass transit ridership.
• 20:43
  And it was not a choice.
• 20:45
  When you go all these, you automatically you go to the train station.
• 20:49
  Right. That's the day we want to see.
• 20:51
  I think, you know, we have to look beyond the current
• 20:54
  first phase and the second phase of skyline.
• 20:57
  And it's just, a couple of days ago, we're talking about,
• 21:01
  expansion to Alamo and the even beyond mall alemanha.
• 21:05
  I think it's really important the fall form on network eventually fall
• 21:10
  to transit mass transit to move the needle.
• 21:14
  And and I think it's a lifestyle change, right?
• 21:16
  Yeah.
• 21:17
  Well, well, right now people are learning.
• 21:19
  I think we on the right track.
• 21:21
  There are more and more people think about skyline as their choice.
• 21:26
  Maybe not their first choice, but in the future
• 21:29
  we want skyline because it become people's first choice.
• 21:32
  Become people's default. Right?
• 21:35
  I think we see the the current generation, the teenagers
• 21:38
  probably going to grow up using mass transit as a first choice.
• 21:42
  Yeah.
• 21:43
  Hong.
• 21:44
  Well, this is as much about policy.
• 21:46
  It's also supposed to be a way to get to know the deputy director
• 21:49
  and the leaders in the city and county of one of the.
• 21:52
  So I have a few would you rather questions.
• 21:55
  Okay. Are you ready?
• 21:56
  All right.
• 21:57
  Would you rather ride five miles uphill on a bike
• 22:02
  or walk ten miles on a flat surface?
• 22:07
  Ten miles on a flat surface?
• 22:09
  Oh, you're not a bike guy.
• 22:10
  I'm I I'm under age.
• 22:12
  I don't know my limit.
• 22:17
  All right.
• 22:17
  Would you rather have a flying carpet
• 22:21
  or a car that can drive underwater?
• 22:24
  Flying? Why?
• 22:27
  I'm not typical a water guy.
• 22:28
  I think I enjoy on the surface.
• 22:33
  Would you rather commute
• 22:34
  through downtown Honolulu via skateboard
• 22:37
  or rollerblades?
• 22:42
  If I have to choose a skateboard, because this is something I can learn.
• 22:46
  I don't skateboard, but at least it's something.
• 22:48
  I have a monetary.
• 22:50
  I have a tutor in the department.
• 22:52
  You probably know who does.
• 22:54
  Travis. Oh, yeah? Yeah.
• 22:56
  Okay. Okay. So you have a skateboard coach. That's.
• 22:58
  Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. All right.
• 23:00
  And would you rather ride a tandem bike?
• 23:03
  So a bicycle built for two with Director Morton or backpack
• 23:07
  the mayor on a scooter, you know, or he sits behind you and holds your waist.
• 23:12
  This is a difficult one.
• 23:17
  I'm probably more comfortable
• 23:19
  without direct and and I probably.
• 23:23
  I haven't done the tandem, but I, I, I watch him riding the bicycle.
• 23:28
  He does ride a bike. You're good.
• 23:31
  Oh, hang on, we're just about at a time.
• 23:33
  But is there anything that we missed?
• 23:35
  I think we covered it all.
• 23:37
  I just want to mention, you know, people come to me
• 23:41
  about challenge of this job.
• 23:44
  I want to share that with you.
• 23:46
  I, I felt, you know, in my previous position,
• 23:50
  my goal was,
• 23:53
  I cannot keep everybody happy around me,
• 23:55
  but I want to keep the majority of people around me happy.
• 23:59
  I think I was able to do that for this current position.
• 24:03
  I want to still maintain the bar.
• 24:05
  You know, I want to make sure,
• 24:08
  I will be able to
• 24:10
  keep the majority of people around me happy.
• 24:14
  So just want to share that with you.
• 24:15
  Yeah.
• 24:16
  Well said.
• 24:17
  Well, Deputy Director Lee, thank you so much for your time.
• 24:20
  Mahalo for having me.
• 24:22
  And DTS isn't the only department with a new deputy.
• 24:25
  The Honolulu Ocean Safety Department has its first ever deputy chief
• 24:29
  and Jimmy Burrows next week.
• 24:31
  We'll hear from him right here on the One Oahu Podcast.
• 24:33
  Mahalo for listening.
• 24:34
  And until next time, Aloha.