Is it me or is infrastructure in Hawaii in general really terrible and falling apart? Much more so than the mainland.

semicolon_storm a day ago | parent | next [-]

Everything's more costly in Hawaii, including maintaining infrastructure

This is true we work with emergency management in Hawaii. Look up the Jones Act. All shipped goods end up having to hit the mainland before going to Hawaii which is a major contributor to increased costs of goods there.

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vladgur a day ago | parent | next [-]

A quick google search on jones act and hawaii reveals this page hosted by International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU)

https://www.ilwulocal142.org/news-item/jones-act-fact-vs-myt...

Few things listed there are clearly false.

"Myth #2: The Jones Act Raises Prices for Hawai‘i Residents.

However, a comprehensive 2020 study by Reeve & Associates and TZ Economics found that this is simply not true.

Their survey compared the prices of 200 consumer goods—including groceries, household items, clothing, and automobiles—at major retailers like Costco, Home Depot, Target, and Walmart in both Honolulu and Los Angeles. The results showed that prices in Hawai‘i were, on average, only 0.5% higher than on the mainland, a negligible difference that cannot be attributed to the Jones Act alone."

As a frequent visitor to Oahu, i stop by Costco on the way from the airport and i can see that most consumables including milk and meat is 30-50% more expensive than at Northern California Costco. This is representative across local supermarkets as well.

So its seems that this union is trying to minimise the impact of shipping on costs of everyday goods

Critics dismiss this study as bogus:

https://www.grassrootinstitute.org/2020/07/shipping-industry...

"using online prices to compare food prices at Hawaii versus Los Angeles stores is problematic. A visit today to the Keeaumoku Street Walmart showed an 18-ounce box of Cheerios selling for $4.26, before tax, versus $3.64 for its listed online price, and a four-pack of 5-ounce cans of albacore tuna for $8.43 versus $6.74 online."

That is actually true, Keamoku Walmart does not pricematch to their online prices and the only way to get those prices is to place an pickup order and wait for several hours to pick up at those prices.

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mothballed a day ago | parent [-]

IlWU are crooks, but I thought jones act said intranational trade had to be by us flagged and manned ship. Not that foreign trade couldn't unload directly there on foreign ship or that it had to go to mainland first.

I've never heard of them having to go to the mainland before unloading in Hawaii. But if they do unload directly in Hawaii maybe they can't unload elsewhere without violating jones act so it's not worth the trip there instead of going to LA to unload and then a US flagged boat has to be used to get it to HI.

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a day ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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renewiltord a day ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s the latter. If you stop at HI you aren’t allowed to also stop at LA. Better to skip Hawaii.

And yeah, watching someone cite ILWU is like watching someone cite Philip Morris on the urban myth that cigarettes cause cancer. Pretty funny that subsequent generations just forget things and people become authorities who are brazenly self-interested.

Reminds me of how Chelsea in the Prem were accused back in the day of “financial doping” by spending vastly more than any other club to get the best players and now you can sometimes find articles for how they’re the best run club in the last 10 years (conveniently timed for after they were given a billion). With a little time, all sins are forgiven.

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mothballed a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Land anywhere useful is also extraordinarily expensive and developing industry is commonly blocked on the thinnest of reasoning. Hawaiians even sabotaged the interisland ferries on some trumped up environmental concerns (they complained a couple people loaded sands or rocks) seemingly being scared shitless of their own people from other islands having cheap access (the tourists just fly so it has nothing to do with overtourism concerns). You can hardly develop any infrastructure that's not tourism or residential, and residential is also usually tough outside the big island.

Also the various cultures on the islands have a tenuous peace as a legacy of cane plantation owners purposefully segregating and pitting the natives, Chinese, Filipinos, and whites against each other. This lives on in everyone sabotaging the development of any other part of the islands and things like 'Kill Haole Day' in the very welcoming public schools.

As a result of this everything is even more expensive than just the shipping and isolation issues.

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eudamoniac 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Hawaii is halfway a reservation, and lots of things get tied up in those politics. Doe vs Kamehameha for example.

	▲	mothballed 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. People of the wrong 'blood' didn't gain full voting rights until this millennia, in a shocking case where RBG bizarrely went on a racist dissent where she argued the 15th amendment didn't create racially equal voting rights (Rice v Cayetano).

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GorbachevyChase a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, this is not directly related to department of transportation is surprisingly helpful when it comes to providing information. Some states have absurd policies like a pseudo classification system for public projects like bridges as if the construction plans would tell you anything you couldn’t have seen with your own eyes or the bad guys are looking at rebar diagrams to find weak points. It’s just silly. HDOT on the other hand is quite laid-back. My assumption is that it’s because everyone is happy just living in a tropical paradise.

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PearlRiver a day ago | parent | prev [-]

All I know is that places like RoK, Taiwan and Japan get typhoons every year and pretty much the only thing that happens is that flights are cancelled.

	▲	ilamont a day ago \| parent [-]
		Not so in Taiwan’s east coast and rift valley, and sometimes in the lowlands. Regular road and rail washouts and sometimes whole bridges wash away. Southern cross island highway was closed for years the last time I visited the area.