When Dennis Callan and his group StopRailNow.com kicked off an anti-rail petition Monday at Honolulu Hale he says he couldn’t have imagined the response would be so overwhelmingly positive.

Within hours of announcing that the grassroots organization would attempt to put a stop to rail by placing the issue on the November ballot, the group’s website (stoprailnow.com) got more than 29,400 individual visits and at least 4,000 petitions were downloaded. “I'm still speechless about it,” said Callan, the group’s co-chairman. “It shows obviously this is a huge issue.”

StopRailNow.com hopes to gather the signatures of 30,000 registered voters by August 1 in order to place an ordinance on the general election ballot. If approved by voters the ordinance would prevent the city and Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann from moving forward with an elevated 20-mile light rail system from East Kapolei to Ala Moana.

Callan, the president of the Hawaii Geographic Society who ran for Honolulu City Council in the late 70’s, says his motives for trying to stop rail transit are simple. “We're concerned about the future of the island,” he said. “We're concerned about the congestion and coming up with reasonable solutions for traffic.”

Callan believes Oahu taxpayers cannot afford the construction of a light rail system estimated to cost at least $3.7 billion dollars. State lawmakers and a majority of the Council approved a half percent general excise tax increase to pay for a fixed guideway system, hoping to raise about $150 million a year with the added tax until it sunsets at the end of 2022. Federal funding is expected to provide an additional $900 million to $1 billion for the project.

“We hoped the politicians would make the right decision (about transit technology) but they haven't,” said Callan, who prefers express buses on a fixed guideway to alleviate congestion. “Our movement to stop this train in no way is a movement to prevent improvement of traffic coming in from the Leeward side. An express bus will be more successful.”

Last week Hannemann said he would move forward with steel wheel on steel rail technology after the Council reached an impasse over a technology for mass transit. Callan says the mayor’s stance on rail as well as those on the Council who support steel on steel technology, is insulting to voters who have a different opinion.

“They have a very condescending attitude towards the public and a very elitist attitude that really has no place in our democracy,” he said. “A project this big and this expensive and affecting all of us so directly has to go to the public.”

Since it was announced Hannemann has said little about the anti-rail petition but in an e-mail response to Khon2 city spokesman Bill Brennan said, “From the very beginning, opponents of transit have talked about this. It's not really anything new.”

Callan scoffed at Brennan’s characterization, saying the mayor’s administration is trying to “dismiss” and “demean” the efforts of his group. He believes the successful start to the group’s campaign and the popularity of the website foreshadows success.

“I don't want to diminish the work that we have ahead of us,” he said, “but we're going to meet the August 1 deadline.”

Website for Anti-Rail Petition

Andrew may be reached at apereira@khon2.com or ph. 591-4263.