Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / DTS deputy director Jon Nouchi on our recent uptick in traffic fatalities

Transcript

DTS deputy director Jon Nouchi on our recent uptick in traffic fatalities · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:14
  Welcome to the One Oahu
• 0:16
  Podcast. I'm your host, Brandi Higa.
• 0:17
  And today is Thursday, July 17th, 2025.
• 0:21
  And we're joined this week by John Nouchi,
• 0:23
  Deputy Director for the city's Department of Transportation Services.
• 0:26
  You know, it's led the newscast for I.
• 0:29
  What is it, months now?
• 0:30
  Our traffic deaths on all roadways
• 0:33
  have more than doubled from this time last year.
• 0:36
  What's happening? Jon?
• 0:38
  Wow. That's a lot to unpack there.
• 0:40
  And, you know, we really all need to take a moment
• 0:44
  and really think about what we do whenever we get on our roadway.
• 0:49
  Whether you're walking, biking, driving
• 0:51
  a car, driving a bus, driving a big truck, you know, delivering things, working,
• 0:57
  going to work or play, every time you get on the road,
• 1:00
  you have a responsibility to I mean, it's a responsibility,
• 1:05
  your community, really,
• 1:06
  that you're going to drive down a road and that you're going to operate,
• 1:09
  you're going to pay attention, you're going to do
• 1:10
  all the things that you need to do to keep our community safe.
• 1:15
  So everybody knows, as I mean,
• 1:18
  I see that kind of cast aside added to that,
• 1:23
  of course, people are mad that people are dying on the roadways,
• 1:25
  so people are being reckless.
• 1:27
  But then we also have people who end up saying stuff like, oh,
• 1:30
  that's because everybody fools around on the road.
• 1:32
  It's because they're not paying attention.
• 1:33
  Everybody like, you know, do tricks and do well for whatever reason, where people
• 1:37
  are crashing on our roads and more importantly, dying on our roads.
• 1:43
  You know, we've got to stop that.
• 1:44
  We've got to stop all the bad activities that lead to that.
• 1:47
  And, you know, that really does start with the small things, right?
• 1:51
  We also not only see a lot of that traffic violence.
• 1:53
  We call it like when you know the human body, it cannot stand up
• 1:59
  to, you know, 4,000 pounds of automobile or truck or whatever.
• 2:03
  So the human body is fragile.
• 2:04
  I mean, it's I mean, the human body is pretty tough. Don't get me wrong.
• 2:07
  But when you put it up against a machine, machine is always going to win.
• 2:12
  If anybody gets hit by a car, they're going to be the big loser.
• 2:15
  If anybody's in two cars, injury happens.
• 2:18
  Even though our cars are safer.
• 2:19
  That's why they think about how come our cars are safer in crash tests.
• 2:24
  But we still have all these fatalities, this uprise of fatalities and
• 2:27
  the bottom line is, is we're all responsible
• 2:30
  for the automobiles if we drive and we're all responsible for ourself.
• 2:34
  And I think that's
• 2:35
  I know we we like to call this like the 100 deadliest days of summer.
• 2:40
  Right.
• 2:40
  And maybe the message shifts away from that.
• 2:43
  And we have to look at this summer as a we had a really bad year
• 2:47
  so far in terms of traffic violence on our roadways and number of crashes
• 2:51
  and number of fatalities, maybe for the rest of this summer.
• 2:55
  This maybe we make this a summer of safety.
• 2:57
  We have to we just have to take
• 3:01
  be more responsible for ourselves, for our families, for our communities,
• 3:05
  that whenever you're on a roadway or you're thinking
• 3:07
  about getting on a roadway, put yourself in the right frame of mind.
• 3:10
  Pay attention.
• 3:11
  Don't make driving a task you do while you do something else.
• 3:15
  Get your mind clear. Get your mind set
• 3:18
  because someone's life does depend on it.
• 3:21
  It might be yours.
• 3:22
  And I think that's the hardest thing.
• 3:24
  You know, I can't stand to see, you know, on on social media,
• 3:29
  people post like, oh, I saw this crash on the road and it was a fatality.
• 3:33
  The roads closed.
• 3:34
  And I hate that a lot of people are more upset about
• 3:39
  the inconvenience that somebody died, that
• 3:43
  a lot of life was lost and they're fixated on that part and say
• 3:48
  they were fooling around anyway or was probably drunk.
• 3:51
  And everybody
• 3:51
  just kind of writes off the actual root causes of why these crashes happen.
• 3:55
  And I think each life is too important to just be written off
• 3:59
  and say, oh, and all the traffic going to be bad all day.
• 4:02
  Now each one will be shut down because of them or
• 4:05
  it's more than that.
• 4:06
  And I think we all need to take a step back and a pause
• 4:11
  to just realize what we do when we get on the roadways.
• 4:14
  And sometimes it's small things, like people.
• 4:17
  I always see people at traffic lights,
• 4:20
  you know, they're going to be there for maybe a minute.
• 4:23
  Two minutes, you know, on the long side.
• 4:26
  And yet the first thing they do when they're at a traffic light,
• 4:29
  bring the phone out,
• 4:31
  scrolling through zoom, scrolling through social media or whatever
• 4:34
  they're doing because they they can't keep their mind
• 4:37
  on the task at hand, which is operating a vehicle safely while on the road.
• 4:41
  So, you know, put the phone down because, you know the least thing that can happen.
• 4:46
  And we see this all the time.
• 4:48
  The light turns green. People still looking at the phone.
• 4:50
  They're first in line. They holding up everybody behind.
• 4:53
  People behind get mad.
• 4:54
  They honk.
• 4:55
  And then it's like, oh, and then they take off, right?
• 4:57
  Even something small like that can lead to like road rage
• 5:00
  and we see a lot more road rage on our, on our streets.
• 5:03
  And again, that that's also traffic violence.
• 5:07
  And we want to make that term one thing.
• 5:09
  You know,
• 5:10
  the outcomes that happen on our roadways when when we don't pay attention
• 5:15
  or we speed, we act recklessly, we drive under the influence.
• 5:20
  Lives are lost.
• 5:21
  And, you know, the repercussions of that are just too great.
• 5:25
  The you know what?
• 5:25
  One life lost and people be like, oh, it's a number.
• 5:27
  It's it's one.
• 5:29
  But that person
• 5:30
  for the thousands of people that they know and they affect in their lives,
• 5:34
  we cannot be pretending like on our island right now.
• 5:37
  You know, we have over a million people on this island at any given time, right?
• 5:41
  But yet we are still kind of a small town, you know, in a certain way.
• 5:44
  And one life gone because of traffic violence.
• 5:47
  It means a lot.
• 5:48
  The repercussions.
• 5:49
  It'll vibrate through the community.
• 5:51
  And so, yeah, why don't we just strive for that end of summer?
• 5:56
  Let's just have the rest of this back half of summer be summer of safety.
• 6:00
  Let's think about it that way.
• 6:01
  We're all responsible for ourselves and what happens in our community.
• 6:04
  So everybody what Michael Jackson say.
• 6:08
  I always use a song lyric when I do a podcast with you.
• 6:10
  So starting with The Man in the mirror, everybody needs to take a look at
• 6:15
  what their role is in being safe
• 6:18
  and making sure that our whole ohana, our friends or family, our community
• 6:23
  stay safe and don't perish due to traffic violence on our roadways.
• 6:27
  So I mean, sorry,
• 6:29
  a very heavy thing to start off with, but it is very top of mind.
• 6:32
  Oh for sure.
• 6:33
  And we're always, you know, talking with our state Department
• 6:36
  of Transportation director at sniffin about ways that we can increase safety.
• 6:41
  And I think we are at a tipping point where
• 6:44
  people are saying enough is enough, yet you can say enough is enough.
• 6:49
  All you want, like I can say, was
• 6:51
  and are going to eat better, are going to live
• 6:53
  better, are going to lose weight, are going to be healthier.
• 6:55
  But once you actually do it, you put it into practice.
• 6:58
  It doesn't happen. Right.
• 6:59
  So I think a lot of people are fed up with whatever facet of traffic violence,
• 7:05
  whether it's the delay to them, the inconvenience for them,
• 7:09
  or the deep loss of life and community when someone perishes like that.
• 7:12
  So whatever it is, let's just stop saying it
• 7:16
  and let's start doing it so we can have summer of safety.
• 7:19
  How do you combat that?
• 7:21
  Or I guess, what's the logistical
• 7:22
  tactical approach when you know you need not only like a two pronged plan?
• 7:26
  Like, you know,
• 7:27
  we always see
• 7:28
  campaigns against driving under the influence, campaigns against speeding.
• 7:31
  But now you have inattentiveness.
• 7:34
  You have, you know, even if you put in things like speed humps, right.
• 7:36
  Like people complain about that on the North Shore,
• 7:38
  you still have people getting out ahead and head on collisions.
• 7:41
  How do you even tackle this problem when it's really like seven prongs?
• 7:45
  I mean, yeah, I mean, you me, you know, I got to take off my shoes too.
• 7:49
  But yeah.
• 7:50
  You need you need toes to tackle the problem.
• 7:52
  I mean, it's all working towards the same end.
• 7:56
  Like, if we care about our community, then we really have to give a damn
• 8:01
  or give multi-pronged damns, if that's a thing.
• 8:05
  I mean, I think we're at a point right now where I don't think anybody
• 8:09
  would disagree that everybody throws out somebody should do something.
• 8:14
  Yes, somebody should do something.
• 8:15
  We all should do something.
• 8:17
  We all need to be responsible for ourselves first.
• 8:20
  And then maybe it doesn't hurt to remind people,
• 8:24
  you know, like your friends, you see them, you know, you give them passes
• 8:27
  because of your friends.
• 8:28
  But if you see people doing stuff on the road, it's not safe.
• 8:32
  You know, maybe it's time to kind of
• 8:35
  like, yank the
• 8:35
  choke chain and say, you know, don't do that anymore.
• 8:38
  It's not safe, you know? And here's why.
• 8:40
  So, I mean, it takes that kind of personal intervention, I think. Right.
• 8:44
  Because sometimes, you know, especially like your friends and family,
• 8:47
  you give them passes, you take them for their good and their bad.
• 8:50
  And maybe sometimes, I mean, even,
• 8:54
  you know, for some of us, I mean,
• 8:56
  we all have a friend that we know is a bad driver, right?
• 8:59
  They have the hook, the car with the the random dings and dents and all over it.
• 9:03
  And it's like, yeah, you know, you would benefit from not driving.
• 9:08
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 9:10
  I mean, lucky thing that that friend maybe the only hit like,
• 9:13
  you know, stuff in parking structures.
• 9:15
  Other cars, like they could hit a person and
• 9:19
  let me, let me
• 9:19
  just before we close off this topic, let's just think about this, right.
• 9:23
  We call them crashes a lot.
• 9:25
  Most people call them accidents, but we call them crashes
• 9:28
  because, you know, an accident implies that it was nobody's fault.
• 9:34
  And in a lot of the more dramatic fatalities that we've had,
• 9:38
  especially this summer or this year, there clearly was fault determined.
• 9:43
  It wasn't like, oh, something just happened.
• 9:45
  The Batmobile lost its wheel.
• 9:47
  You know, it wasn't something, a freak thing that happened.
• 9:51
  It was an informed choice.
• 9:52
  And sometimes that choice happens way before you get behind the wheel.
• 9:57
  And for me, as a as a guy who loves transportation,
• 10:01
  somebody who works in transportation and wants to see everybody get around better.
• 10:06
  When I say better, actually, I think I mean safe, safer safety first, right?
• 10:11
  A lot of the times we make
• 10:12
  that decision, like when you're having your first beer,
• 10:16
  I mean, you got to think like, you know, after you have your 10th beer,
• 10:20
  you've made all that decision. You can't undo that.
• 10:22
  This isn't life where you can hit
• 10:24
  Ctrl Z on the keyboard and go back to when you had your first beer,
• 10:27
  and then go start a car up and again, get behind the wheel and drive.
• 10:31
  And I think that's what it is.
• 10:33
  It's a cascading
• 10:36
  series of bad decisions that often leads to the worse outcomes.
• 10:41
  And yes, I want to point out, yeah, sometimes you make one bad decision
• 10:45
  and that that's it right there.
• 10:48
  But when you look at things that have happened,
• 10:50
  you know, our team here at DTS, we work with,
• 10:55
  our partners at HPD,
• 10:57
  and we really delve into root cause sometimes of these of these crashes
• 11:01
  and it ends up being a really emotional game of if only,
• 11:07
  I mean, and I think I don't think anybody who experiences a crash,
• 11:10
  even if you have like a little minor fender bender, like maybe you bumped
• 11:13
  into somebody because, you know, your car rolled or even those minor ones,
• 11:17
  if you was rushing and you were, and that rushing caused you
• 11:21
  to kind of have a lapse in judgment and did something like that.
• 11:25
  I don't think anybody who rushed and got into a crash, even minor,
• 11:28
  would say that it was worth it.
• 11:30
  It's never worth it.
• 11:32
  And so let's just think about that.
• 11:33
  For a minor fender bender. It's not worth it.
• 11:35
  If you're going to take a life and take somebody out of our community
• 11:40
  who has value and who has a network of people
• 11:44
  and, you know, rob them of their future and all those things.
• 11:48
  I mean, think about that.
• 11:50
  Like we've lost over 40 people
• 11:53
  in our community this year and think of all the,
• 11:58
  I mean, just their potential that we all lost.
• 12:01
  And it starts to be very heavy after a while.
• 12:03
  But I think we need to feel that way.
• 12:05
  Like when you get on the road, you have a responsibility
• 12:07
  not only to yourself but to everybody else,
• 12:09
  people in your vehicle, but the people in your community
• 12:12
  that you're going to be
• 12:12
  at your best, at your sharpest, and you're not going to be the cause.
• 12:17
  You're not going to make any decisions intentionally that are going to cause
• 12:21
  that much hurt to any other person, to any other family, to any other community.
• 12:25
  And maybe I'm drawing it too many strings here,
• 12:29
  but the pain in our community is too great for us to bear right now.
• 12:33
  And if that's not enough to make people think about making better choices,
• 12:37
  I don't know what is.
• 12:38
  So yeah, let's try for Summer of safety.
• 12:40
  I like that, switching gears now to something a little lighter,
• 12:45
  there's an exciting announcement that we're going to be making this week,
• 12:48
  tomorrow, celebrating,
• 12:50
  our neighbor islands and some of the vehicles that they'll be getting.
• 12:52
  Can you talk about them?
• 12:53
  Yeah. Yeah. This makes me much happier.
• 12:56
  We've had an a zero emission electric bus program in place
• 13:00
  in City of Honolulu and, the bus system since 2020.
• 13:05
  And so we're kind of cresting five years on that program.
• 13:08
  And we found these busses to be really high performing.
• 13:11
  Our operators like them, our passengers like them.
• 13:14
  They're quiet.
• 13:15
  They have, you know, very little noise impact where they operate.
• 13:20
  So we, we we rarely have that much of a win
• 13:23
  win, win, win win on so many fronts.
• 13:27
  And we found the moment when our neighbor island partners.
• 13:31
  So our other three county transit partners.
• 13:33
  Yes there is transit on Kaua'i, Maui and Hawaii County.
• 13:38
  They're getting their first electric busses.
• 13:41
  And what's super cool
• 13:42
  is, is, you know, led by the state Department of Transportation,
• 13:46
  these busses are coming in actually on the same ship to Honolulu Harbor.
• 13:50
  And we have an opportunity to have, like the whole
• 13:53
  state of Hawaii transit ohana together in one place
• 13:58
  that we all are having the same electric bus in a spectrum rainbow.
• 14:02
  Of all the different fleets that operate in our state.
• 14:07
  And we just thought it was nice to commemorate, like we've had
• 14:10
  a very successful, electric bus program here and kind of welcoming
• 14:15
  the rest of the transit ohana statewide
• 14:18
  to the good life with these electric vehicles.
• 14:21
  So, just because I don't think it's it will it's happened before,
• 14:26
  nor will it ever happen again
• 14:27
  that everybody will have a bus on island at the same time.
• 14:30
  We're celebrating that
• 14:31
  with mayor and, other county mayors and other county transportation directors.
• 14:35
  They're all going to come down and we're just going to kind of like, bask
• 14:38
  in that moment that we are all together in that same, you know, canoe
• 14:42
  that we speak of, that we're navigating towards a sustainable,
• 14:46
  more sustainable future for our transit systems.
• 14:48
  On that note, secure sustainable transit.
• 14:51
  Later
• 14:51
  this month, Hart begins chart operations for the next segment of skyline.
• 14:55
  Yeah. So what does that mean? What's happening?
• 14:57
  And what does this kind of signal the start of?
• 14:59
  So trial operations is a chance for us to burn in the system.
• 15:04
  And I know
• 15:05
  some people have probably seen the trains operating where they usually don't
• 15:08
  operate before. So,
• 15:10
  later
• 15:10
  this fall we're going to be opening the next five miles of track
• 15:13
  between Halawa and Middle Street. So,
• 15:17
  what that will do is we're opening four stations with that.
• 15:21
  So four stations include the Pearl Harbor station,
• 15:24
  the Lily power, Daniel Carnoy International Airport station,
• 15:28
  the Aqua Lagoon Drive station, and the Kahului Weekly Transit Center station.
• 15:32
  So like I always say, I think this is a great opportunity
• 15:35
  for us celebrating rail's approach to Honolulu.
• 15:38
  We're touching the edge of Kali West Kali West Honolulu.
• 15:43
  I don't know, I've tried to make it, I think, but it's still not sticking.
• 15:46
  And I always call West.
• 15:48
  Kali like, we have an East Honolulu, we have an East Oahu, and I have what?
• 15:52
  We have a west wall, but we need we need a West Honolulu.
• 15:54
  Or maybe we'll just stick with
• 15:56
  West Coast clean West Kali website.
• 16:01
  Different west side.
• 16:03
  But it is a time for, for Hart
• 16:06
  to really bring in the trains and the track
• 16:10
  and the procedures that it takes to maintain safe operations
• 16:14
  on our rail system in preparation for turning that over to,
• 16:19
  us here at DTS earlier this week, we had a full scale
• 16:23
  operations in the name of safety, and we held that at the Lily power.
• 16:28
  Daniel Kino International Airport station.
• 16:30
  And we chose that station because it really involved
• 16:35
  so many different parties, government and private, that overlap there
• 16:39
  in a very compact yet super essential space.
• 16:43
  Now, some of you may not be aware, but the the the power station
• 16:47
  is located right smack dab in the middle of the airport.
• 16:50
  Just for some context, it's located between the inter island terminal
• 16:54
  and maybe the International, customs exit.
• 16:58
  So it's perched there up in the air and
• 17:03
  there's so many jurisdictions that cross there.
• 17:05
  It's, you know, at a state Department of Transportation airports facility,
• 17:10
  which is patrolled by state sheriffs and their local security team.
• 17:15
  And then, you know, it's operated by the city.
• 17:19
  And HPD also enforces on the on
• 17:21
  the fringes of that, first responders like EMS and fire.
• 17:26
  They would respond in case there was ever any emergency.
• 17:29
  It also connects to the bus system there.
• 17:31
  So there's so many different parties that get involved there that it
• 17:35
  was a good experience to have everybody there.
• 17:39
  And basically it's an exercise,
• 17:42
  we pretend that something, in any event, such as a mass casualty event
• 17:47
  or something like that happens such that everybody can have the opportunity
• 17:51
  of participating in a drill so that if the unthinkable ever were to happen,
• 17:56
  that we would have practiced it and we would see kind of, the overlap
• 18:00
  and all the jurisdictional needs that happen there.
• 18:03
  It is very similar
• 18:04
  to what we did in Kapolei before we opened the first segment.
• 18:07
  In 2023.
• 18:10
  That was super exciting.
• 18:11
  You get to see our first responders and everybody else really in their element.
• 18:15
  I mean, they're practicing the evacuation of people
• 18:19
  from maybe from a train, maybe from a station,
• 18:23
  from the guideway. And,
• 18:27
  if you're there in person, it tensions are high.
• 18:30
  Like, everyone takes this very seriously.
• 18:32
  It's it's as if something's happening at times.
• 18:34
  You can forget that, you know, it's just a drill, which is good.
• 18:38
  I mean, that means everybody has, you know,
• 18:40
  internalize it and take it very seriously.
• 18:41
  So if you were at the airport earlier this week and thought
• 18:45
  there was a lot of drama at night, that's what it was, we apologize.
• 18:48
  But we are putting out we did put out a lot of signs that, did,
• 18:52
  you know, warn people in the area that we are practicing a drill
• 18:56
  and that they should not panic.
• 18:57
  There's a proposal
• 18:58
  not to change some bus routes to encourage folks to utilize skyline.
• 19:02
  So those coming from the west side, can you talk about that?
• 19:04
  Yeah.
• 19:06
  You know, skyline as skyline gets longer,
• 19:09
  we have the opportunity of using it to its greatest capacity.
• 19:12
  It's like a big pipe that we can carry a lot of passengers on.
• 19:16
  And better yet, now that we're touching Kalaheo Transit
• 19:19
  Center on Middle Street in West Kalihi, we can actually have,
• 19:23
  like, give people a cheat code that they can skip the traffic on
• 19:28
  and the congestion on each one that, you know, people plan their lives around.
• 19:32
  So I think the as skyline
• 19:35
  grows, we adjust all the routes in our system.
• 19:38
  And our second opening this fall is no different.
• 19:42
  When we opened our first, we adjusted more than,
• 19:46
  I think, more than a dozen routes to,
• 19:49
  bring people to and from skyline to help people take that first
• 19:53
  and last mile into their neighborhood, or to make long distance connections
• 19:55
  to actually get on skyline, that's going to be the same.
• 19:59
  I think one of the best parts of this, and we're going to get the word out
• 20:02
  about this, is so, so the skyline will operate through the airport
• 20:07
  and, and at temporarily at Middle Street.
• 20:11
  Everybody says, well, what about the tourists?
• 20:12
  What about our visitors?
• 20:14
  And I said, well, first of all, let's celebrate
• 20:16
  that all of our West Side and central people
• 20:18
  can actually take skyline from the airport and go,
• 20:22
  you know, skip the congestion on each one and maybe have their family or friends
• 20:25
  pick them up at a station near their neighborhood.
• 20:28
  Like the value of that.
• 20:29
  I think we haven't really internalized yet.
• 20:32
  And people,
• 20:32
  when they try that for the first time, I think they're going to have that mind
• 20:36
  blown thing, you know, that, hey, you can take a flight that gets in and,
• 20:41
  you know, a lot of our flights do get in at like rush hour.
• 20:44
  So there's a lot of flights that come in from the continent at about four,
• 20:47
  and nobody wants to pick you up at the airport when you come in at 430,
• 20:51
  and they have to drive from the country and come in
• 20:53
  and then fight the traffic to go back home with you.
• 20:55
  So yes, we're taking care of our residents first.
• 20:58
  But for our visitors
• 20:59
  who are going to Waikiki, we're putting in a rapid express bus.
• 21:03
  It's going to be called the W line.
• 21:05
  Maybe we'll call it the Dublin on there.
• 21:07
  You know, when it gets more and more colloquial.
• 21:09
  But it operates between the airport station
• 21:14
  and the Lagoon Drive station, and then straight shots
• 21:16
  all the way into Ala moana and Waikiki along Nimitz Highway.
• 21:22
  No deviations, nothing out of the way.
• 21:25
  Exactly as you would drive.
• 21:27
  And we're operating that, you know, very frequently to match the skyline
• 21:30
  frequencies, which then comes every ten, ten minutes.
• 21:33
  So even if you think about all of our, our, our West Side people or our ever
• 21:37
  people who live in the West Side
• 21:42
  but work in service industry in Waikiki, that's for them.
• 21:45
  Two. Right?
• 21:46
  They can transfer to this W line and get into Waikiki as soon as they can.
• 21:50
  So upon opening we'll have three of these lines.
• 21:54
  And I think Brandy, you were responsible for some speak in DTS.
• 21:59
  You came up with the term land lines.
• 22:01
  I did come up with the. Yeah.
• 22:03
  So we have skyline in
• 22:04
  the sky and we have our busses on the ground called Land Lines.
• 22:07
  And that's all because of Randy.
• 22:10
  Are you for underline?
• 22:11
  Yeah, underline under ground.
• 22:12
  Maybe we'll have underline pretty soon.
• 22:14
  We have a subway. Yeah.
• 22:16
  You heard it here first, but we'll have three land lines.
• 22:20
  We'll have the A line, which is a shortened version of our current route,
• 22:26
  A, which operates between Lagoon Drive,
• 22:29
  via the freeway to downtown.
• 22:32
  And, you know, we will have the U line, which operates all day,
• 22:37
  and it is a one seat ride between Lagoon
• 22:39
  Drive Station and Manoa.
• 22:42
  That'll be huge for the U-H, faculty, staff and students.
• 22:47
  And we'll have the W line that we talked about between
• 22:51
  Airport, Lagoon Drive and Waikiki.
• 22:53
  So we'll have a, a whole suite of services.
• 22:55
  And that's not the only changes
• 22:56
  we're making, but those will be significant and increasing
• 22:59
  like the ease of mobility in and around our city.
• 23:02
  Well, John, thank you so much for your time.
• 23:03
  Is there anything that we missed?
• 23:05
  I don't think so.
• 23:05
  I mean, there's a lot going on right now.
• 23:08
  Yeah.
• 23:08
  Well, July 17th is also National Emoji Day.
• 23:14
  What is your favorite emoji?
• 23:16
  You want me to act it out or do you want me to
• 23:17
  I don't know what it's called.
• 23:19
  I oh okay act it out and let me.
• 23:20
  We can see if we can describe it. Okay. For those listening.
• 23:23
  Oh what is that?
• 23:25
  Oh, a straight face, your mouth or your lips are just straight.
• 23:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or this one.
• 23:31
  Okay.
• 23:32
  So all teeth face with all teeth.
• 23:34
  Yeah, yeah. This is a new game.
• 23:37
  There's also it that substitutes
• 23:39
  for the Michael Scott from the office.
• 23:42
  The animated GIF.
• 23:44
  It's an.
• 23:47
  We'll just have to put this on the YouTube
• 23:48
  and YouTube channel because it's always hard to describe.
• 23:50
  I don't know what it gets into,
• 23:51
  but like, yeah, I get myself into a lot of awkward situations and.
• 23:54
  And then you have to use that. One.
• 23:55
  And I'm kind of like, yeah. Okay. Yeah.
• 23:59
  You know, July 17th is also, National Tattoo Day.
• 24:01
  Do you have any tattoos?
• 24:02
  I don't oh, I have is there is it for that?
• 24:06
  No. Did you think I'd have a tattoo?
• 24:08
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:09
  I mean, you work with, like, a lot of Hawaiian civic clubs. Either.
• 24:11
  Maybe you had, like, something tribal or.
• 24:13
  No tattoos.
• 24:14
  Your bodies are something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:17
  Retaining my my my pristine appearance.
• 24:23
  That doesn't mean I'd never get one.
• 24:25
  If you were. Yeah.
• 24:26
  Unlimited budget right now.
• 24:27
  I was going to say I'll pay for anything you want.
• 24:28
  What would you get? Oh.
• 24:31
  Oh. I got to think about that.
• 24:32
  So I thought about it. Too. Oh, yeah.
• 24:34
  You have to get it someplace secret.
• 24:36
  No, no, no.
• 24:37
  Okay, I got to think about that because I don't I don't want this to be out there.
• 24:41
  And then people be like, oh, I thought you said you was going to go and tattoo.
• 24:45
  But, John, thanks so much for your time.
• 24:47
  Nancy. Let's shoot.
• 24:49
  I don't know, I like what I was I will get you back.
• 24:52
  We'll get we'll come back and we'll get your answer next.
• 24:54
  Yeah, I know I gotta think about that.
• 24:56
  Oh, I think so. All of you for listening.
• 24:58
  If you have a tattoo idea for John the.
• 24:59
  Would you the deputy director for the city's
• 25:01
  Department of Transportation services.
• 25:03
  You can always drop it to my dad.
• 25:04
  We'll let him know.
• 25:05
  We'll hear back from him on the next time he's on this podcast.
• 25:07
  Thanks for listening. And until next time, Aloha.