The Hawaii Superferry has been in local news for over a year. The main topic of choice has been to write about how the company was able to start operation even without doing an environmental impact study. Or how people tried to stop the vessel from entering one port or the other.

But this article isn’t about that. This one is about how the Superferry is actually making runs between Oahu and Maui, taking passengers and their vehicles on the trips between Honolulu Harbor and Kahului. Tickets still cost only $39, an offer that will continue through June 5th, for one way per passenger on a trip that takes just under four hours.

Vehicles will run you another $55 each way which brings the total for two people back and forth between the islands, $266. Considering that plane fares look like they’re going to continue to rise with rising gas prices and Aloha Airlines closing its doors, if the price of the voyage doesn’t rise drastically, this may be a decent alternative.

But now onto the good news. In addition to traveling everyday, leaving Honolulu at 6:30 am, arriving Maui at 10:15 am, then doing the return leaving at 11:15 arriving in Honolulu at 2:15, the Hawaii Superferry will increase routes and run another round trip on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The second trip will leave Honolulu Harbor at 3:30 pm, arrive Maui at 7:00 pm then leave Kahului at 8:00 pm and finally return back to Honolulu Harbor at 11:00 pm. This schedule will begin on May 9th, 2008. This may mean that the Superferry is doing well, but I haven’t heard much. The ship still takes gas so I can’t imagine it’s immune to the rise in gas prices. Do we think it can sustain the $39 and be competitive?

Has anyone been on the Superferry? Any pictures, any opinions? Is it crowded? Are they doing well? Let us know if you have any scoops.

You can check out the Superferry website here

The Hawaii Superferry is looking to get a second chance at sailing while the state performs an environmental impact study.

The Lingle Administration recently proposed operating restrictions and now has officially called the special session into order. The state legislature will meet to begin working on the bill that would allow the Hawaii Superferry to run while the state conducts it’s impact study.

The battle for and against the Hawaii Superferry continues dividing the islands amongst themselves as well as dividing the islands against each other. Big Island residents are now voicing their opinions on the vessel that will set sail for Kawaihae on the Big Island starting in 2009.

Meanwhile, for those of you who commute down Nimitz in and out of Honolulu, the Superferry is in plain sight, sitting idle at the docks.

The Hawaii Superferry, which reduced it’s work force last week after a Maui Judge ruled that it couldn’t sail while an environmental evaluation was completed, is struggling to find any way it can to resume sailing between the islands. Even if the sailing is severely limited.

The Lingle administration is working to draft some sort of bill that would allow the Superferry to do so as soon as possible, before CEO John Geribaldi takes his Superferry to another location for good. The state would have wasted too much money if that happens so it’s obvious that the Lingle camp will do anything it can to allow the vessel to sail.

The latest from lawmakers as the Honolulu Advertiser has it is that the “Hawaii Superferry would have to give “unconditional acceptance” to operating restrictions that protect whales and prevent the spread of invasive species in exchange for being allowed to resume ferry service while the state conducts an environmental review, according to a potential Superferry compromise.”

Not sure what that means but it sounds good. The new question is who will decide the restrictions. The article from the Advertiser says that the Lingle administration would impose the restrictions and not be subject to judicial or administrative review but lawmakers could add restrictions later. How do you read that?

Does that mean, “Sign this paper where we say we’re going to impose restrictions.”

We’ll have to wait and see what happens over the coming week.

The Hawaii Superferry which officially shut down Tuesday by Maui Judge Joseph Cardoza saw another blow. This time the blow required the Superferry administration to let go 80 percent of it’s workforce.

Governor Lingle proposed a bill to the State Senate that got rejected. Although just a first revision, more will obviously come to try and help the state keeps it’s ferry in service while the environmental study is underway, the company still laid off 249 of 308 employees.

The layoff, which is temporary, is being used to try and alleviate the $650,000 that the company is losing weekly by allowing the Superferry to sit idle in the Honolulu Harbor.

There will no doubt be another run at the bill by the administration but this setback just puts the company running the Superferry closer to a decision to moving the Ferry to another location. Possibly permanently.

The ruling today was handed down by Maui Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza, the Hawaii Superferry can’t run while the state prepares an environmental assessment of the boat. Thats an assessment that could take months to complete.

Does this mean the Superferry will leave? Well, according to the CEO the company is losing $650,000 a week with the boat sitting in the harbor. If it can’t sail, they’ll have to look elsewhere until it can, with no guarantee that it will come back.

Judge Cardoza said that the state’s environmental law clearly states an environmental assessment must be done before a project can proceed.

The state legislature has already said they will have to have a special session to see if they need to overrule the judge. In an already divided public opinion, this is likely to add more fuel to the fire. It’s a tough decision to make. The recent poll that said the majority of public opinion favors the ferry is very interesting. We’ll see what people have to say after this ruling.

My guess is the people who opposed the Hawaii Superferry will love the ruling, and those that favored the ferry won’t fight as hard to bring it back as those that fought to keep it away. It’ll be tough to bring it back if it leaves. But then again I don’t know all the ins and outs of the rulings and the business side. So I’ll leave that to politicians to figure out.

A recent poll by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin shows that there is a lot of support for the Hawaii Superferry to continue service while an environmental impact study is done.

The current situation for the Hawaii Superferry has been up and down in the public eye. If you live in the isles you’ve probably had a discussion or two at work about the topic. Even Aloha Update has asked for your opinion.

But the latest poll, taken via telephone of 150 random households on the 4 major islands, says that 64 percent of the people would like the Hawaii Superferry to continue service while the court ordered environmental impact study is done.

Also from the survey, a deadlocked 42.5 for yes vs 41.4 for no, say that an environmental impact study should even be done. The remaining either don’t know or say maybe. (Not sure what a maybe answer is on this poll?) Maui and Kauai both had the highest percentage which say the study should be done.

Also in the Hawaii Superferry news is comments made by Superferry CEO John Garibaldi who has made it clear that if the Superferry service is stopped for the up to 8 months it will take to complete the environmental impact study, the Superferry would likely leave. They’ll just loose too much money. About $650,000 a week according to a Honolulu Advertiser article.

The battle over the Hawaii Superferry continues to pull apart the State of Hawaii. Actually to be honest with you, I don’t really know anyone who is all for the Hawaii Superferry? All I hear is people that are against it. Be it for environmental (the most popular reason), economic, or for the sake of keeping the outer islands (those not overpopulated like Oahu) from being turned into a tourist haven, people all have their reasons for disliking the Superferry.

Although I don’t know the ins and outs of what the Superferry can really do environmentally, the arguments against the vessel seem legit. The one that rings loudest in my head is the spread of invasive bugs and seeds that was explained to me one day from a guy who getting a PHD studying bugs (I think that’s entomology?)

He mentioned that since a lot of those traveling to the other islands bringing their cars will most likely be hunters (not sure where he got the “most likely” from but it seems sound), these are the same people that will travel deeper into the woods. Some of these woods are much more pristine, Maui and Kauai, than they are here on Oahu. If those same plants and bugs have a faster mode of spreading than would normally, the spread of invasive species will be much more rapid. Makes sense.

The thing I don’t get is somewhat related. If it costs just as much, possibly less, to fly and rent a car, than it does to take the ferry, what good is it to take the ferry. And to top it off, you’ll spread invasive species with your vehicle?

The other argument you here is about the marine life and the ferry traveling too fast for some, namely whales, to get out of the way. Not sure on this one. I see big cargo boats traveling in and out of Honolulu Harbor all day long. Realize they don’t go that fast but I think those could do some damage fo sho. But I do get the speed issue.

Lastly, you here about the people who don’t want the ports built up, their roads cluttered with Oahu vehicles, and their islands being turned into a tourist traffic jam. This is understandable. However, I would imagine that if people are going over to other islands they would rent a car if they didn’t bring their own. As for the ports being built up… not sure what to tell you there. That’s a preference of people who live there, and one I can respect.

As for me, I’ll have to get back to you on the Superferry.

If you want to further your knowledge (or fuel your passion against the Superferry) try out some of these links.

Save Kahului Harbor was brought to my attention via this Superferry comment here on Aloha Update. It’s an interesting site with a funky starting picture of someone superimposed vomiting (sorry to ruin the surprise). This site actually has a ton of information following all the legislature and what people really have to say about the impact of the Superferry.

Hawaii made headlines in this NY Times article. Although all it says is that there were protesters in Kauai it was interesting to see the topic hit the nation. Also here’s one from USA Today.

Here what the Hawaii Superferry President and CEO had to say in this Honolulu Advertiser interview. It talks about the Environmental Impact Study, or really, the reason there wasn’t one.

You read that correctly. We just got this bit of news from the Honolulu Advertiser that with the Superferry out-of-service the state could be charged with up to $40 million.

Although we suggest reading the Advertiser article to get the full skinny on what could be costing you the tax payer money in the future here’s what we got from it.

The state was suppossed to recieve about $2 million a year for the first 2 - 3 years of service and then $3 million a year after that from the Superferry company. That money was supossed to be used to pay back the states debt for the project, most notably the improvements to the ports that are to use the Superferry.

Yikes, thats a bit of cash! If you want to way in and give your opinion check out our Hawaii Superferry Opinion Post. There’s already a good opinion over there and we’re hoping to get a little discussion going.

After Oahu’s second commuter ferry ran into problems on Monday morning the new service looked to be headed the way of the Hawaii Superferry.

But, with two days to work on the boat, the Rachel Marie, and a part flown in, the commuter ferry is back up and running on it’s normal schedule from Kalaeloa to Aloha Tower.

Passengers of the ferry can enjoy the last 3 days of the week with free service on both boats.

One of the nice things of the blog format is that you can comment on articles you read. With that, we’d like to get your opinion on the Hawaii Superferry debate that is going on right now. Although we haven’t been following the story too much (we really should get on that) all we here is Superferry this and Superferry that.

The question is Allow the Superferry or Not? Just comment below on what you think Hawaii should do.