Maui native Ethan Kaleiopu and his family are in the real estate and tourism industries, and often fly back and forth between the Valley Isle and O‘ahu for work.

And once on O‘ahu, they need a car. Kaleiopu says traditional rental car services aren’t always an option when he has to book last-minute flights. To avoid any uncertainty and stress, he says he turns to Turo, a car-sharing service. It can be more convenient, he says, and “you can be really selective with what type of vehicle you want.”

He doesn’t worry about shortages because there are plenty of vehicles available and “you can book a car fairly quickly,” including just hours before landing on O‘ahu. And he enjoys that most of the money he pays to Turo goes to the car’s owner.

Kaleiopu and his family are not only Turo renters; since the pandemic, they’ve been “hosts,” too. He started by renting out his mother’s car when both she and her husband were laid off. Now the extended family has 10 cars for rent on Maui.

Turo and Getaround are two peer-to-peer car-sharing services that operate in Hawai‘i for tourists and locals alike.

Turo has been around nationally since 2009, but “was still really scarce” in Hawai‘i until Covid arrived, says Kaleiopu. “Not many people were doing it.”

The service gained popularity here with the pandemic-fueled rental car shortage. The Hawai‘i Tourism Authority reported the Islands’ fleet of rental cars had dropped by over 40% from 2019 to 2021.

Albert Mangahas, Turo’s chief data officer, says “Turo has stepped up to kind of save the day” with its list of available cars in the Islands.

How It Works

Peer-to-peer car-sharing services allow vehicle owners to rent their cars to people for short terms.

People can scan turo.com for available vehicles in their preferred areas or at specific locations like an airport, and rent specific vehicles at daily prices set by vehicle owners. They can also filter results based on specific criteria like car type, price and features.

Guests can also request vehicle drop-offs and pickups at specific locations.

Car owners, known on Turo as hosts, set their own rental rates, which can be lower or higher than those offered by rental car companies.

For example, a recent open-ended search on the Turo website for the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport showed 200 vehicles available in Honolulu with a price range from $44 per day for a 2020 Toyota Corolla to $214 per day for a 2020 Tesla Model X. At the same time, rental company Enterprise showed a Toyota Corolla for rent at $129.98 per day.

Turo also offers car insurance and protection plans for both hosts and renters. According to the platform, every host plan comes with $750,000 in third-party liability insurance for when the cars are being rented.

The platform has five levels of plans for hosts, which can earn 60%-90% of the trip price, depending on which plan they choose, though hosts typically collect 75%.

If a guest damages a car they rent, Turo says, the guest’s own car insurance may cover it. If not, guests should buy a Turo protection plan. The Insurance Information Institute, which has 60 insurance companies as members, says car insurance policies differ on whether they cover peer-to-peer rentals, so check your policy or call your insurance agent.

Makes Owning a Car More Affordable

Kaleiopu says being a Turo host helps him and his family cut the costs of car ownership. For example, when his parents were laid off during the pandemic, Turo helped cover the payments on his mother’s car, along with maintenance costs.

Now Kaleiopu and his family have 10 cars listed on Turo, which they use as personal cars when they’re not rented. He has the vehicles separated into different Turo accounts – one each for himself, his parents and aunty – and each account can earn from a few hundred dollars a month to $1,500.

Illustration: Getty Images, Amy Lowe

The average cost of owning a vehicle in Hawai‘i is $8,100 a year, or $675 monthly, according to a study by the Ulupono Initiative. The study also found that 80% of households in the state own two or more cars.

Turo’s Mangahas says cars sit idle 95% of the time, and “Turo’s hosting platform transforms these underutilized assets into earnings engines and puts money back into our hosts’ pockets.”

Extra Source Of Income

Looking for an alternative source of income, Maui resident Karissa and Jon Baker became Turo hosts in 2021. She says her husband worked in the hospitality industry as a valet and that the pandemic “was hard” on her family.

They started with two cars on the platform, and now host or co-host 75, for themselves, family and friends. Their car-sharing service is called “Chosen Rentals,” and does all reservations through Turo.

Illustration: Getty Images, Amy Lowe

“Hawai‘i is expensive, so this has been a great way to supplement our family’s income,” she says.

Hawai‘i Island resident Tarek Antaki has been using Turo as a host and renter for more than two years, and says income from the service represents 40% to 50% of his total income.

He was one of 13 people who responded to Hawaii Business’ outreach on social media to find Turo hosts and renters.

“Turo allows me to support my family of four,” he wrote.

A typical Turo host can earn $115 per four-day transaction, which is enough to cover on average a monthʻs insurance and registration costs, according to a 2022 study commissioned by Turo. If a car is shared for two weeks in a month, the entire monthly cost of the vehicle, including the typical car payment, can be covered.

Illegal To Park At Airports

The Hawai‘i Department of Transportation says it’s illegal to park Turo-rented cars at any state airport.

Source: Turo

Turo officials say they have been working with state officials to establish a permitting system but for now recommend that hosts arrange for pickups and drop-offs outside of airport property. Nonetheless, some hosts pick up guests at state airports and take them to nearby parking lots to turn over the keys and vehicles.

On Kaua‘i, a shuttle runs between Līhu‘e Airport and a dedicated parking area at Kukui Grove Center for Turo drop-offs and pickups.

Last year, some state lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to pass a law that would ban peer-to-peer car rental programs, citing concerns they can lead to overtourism and are not regulated.

Mix of Locals And Tourists

When Kaleiopu and his family started as Turo hosts, they noticed only younger tourists were renting their cars. But in the last two years, he says more locals and Neighbor Island residents have been using the service.

Recently, a couple of Kaua‘i residents traveled to Maui to get married and booked one of Kaleiopu’s best vehicles. Kaleiopu says they put together something nice for them like a goodie basket and lei to help “set the tone” of the trip.

“It was nice because it’s locals helping other locals, and kind of setting that experience,” he says.

Turo host Baker agrees and says a lot of local Turo hosts “go the extra mile to make a guest’s experience special and unique.”

“It’s a great economic opportunity for a lot of the hosts in the Hawai‘i area in terms of really kind of supporting this concept and exciting idea – this regenerative tourism,” says Turo’s Mangahas. “The great thing about this is it’s not only enabling tourists to come, but it’s the earnings that are coming directly into local Turo hosts here in the Hawai‘i Islands.”

Source: Ulupono Initiative | Illustration: Getty Images, Amy Lowe

Note: Hawaii Business spoke with John Andoh, who was Hawai‘i County’s Mass Transit Administrator and GM, in January. Since then, Andoh has resigned from the position and now works in a similar role on the mainland.

Hawai‘i County’s Hele-On system which includes its buses, ride-share taxi program, bike-share services and paratransit services, is undergoing a refresh with bigger changes planned.

Photo: courtesy of County of Hawai’i Mass Transit Agency

John C. Andoh, who was the mass transit administrator and GM when we spoke to him in January, said his eventual goal was to “rebuild a struggling transit system that has had its challenges over the last 10 years.” That means getting more people accustomed to using public transit rather than relying on cars for travel, developing a strong preventive maintenance program to maintain buses, replacing aging buses and converting to zero-emission vehicles, he says.

Photo: courtesy of County of Hawai’i Mass Transit Agency

The system currently has 24 routes connecting communities across the Big Island, with many of them covering vast rural areas.

Bus ridership declined from 663,784 passenger trips in fiscal year 2019 to 325,049 in FY 2021, Andoh says, but rebounded to 582,836 in FY 2022. That rebound was fueled by free fares on fixed routes and paratransit services beginning in February 2021 “to give us time to rebuild the transit system and get people acclimated to having buses all over,” he says.

Free fares were also in place from 2005 to 2013 – a period when passenger trips grew from 329,000 to over 1.2 million.

The average age of the fleet’s 55 fixed-route buses is 17.8 years, and some are as old as 28, Andoh says. The fleet also includes seven paratransit vans plus vehicles provided by contractors as needed.

Photo: courtesy of County of Hawai’i Mass Transit Agency

The county also has funds to purchase 36 buses. The county aims to purchase them over the next three years, according to Andoh. The sizes vary: 26, 29, 35, 40 and 45 feet long. He says the goal is to eventually replace all of the county’s older buses over the next 12 to 14 years.

Photo: Aaron Yoshino

Honolulu’s new electric buses still wear their iconic yellow and orange on the outside, but inside they have quieter engines and smoother rides.

“The operators love them because they’re really powerful and really quiet,” says Jon Nouchi, deputy director of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services. People can talk and “not be overcome by the noise and vibration.”

The city’s older buses – many still operating beyond their mileage “life expectancy” – are being phased out to make room for new buses – some of them built to meet the fleet’s zero-emissions goal by 2035.

Some of the new 40-foot, low-floor buses feature vinyl seating (right), which is easier to
clean than fabric seats on the older high-floor buses (left). | Photo: Aaron Yoshino

But not every new bus is electric. Oahu Transit Services, a nonprofit that operates TheBus and HandiVan for the City and County of Honolulu, is also getting 35 new 60-foot, articulated, fuel-efficient and “clean-diesel” buses over a three year period from Nova Bus, a North American manufacturer, under a deal signed in August. Clean diesel refers to a diesel fuel that is refined to improve combustion efficiency and reduce harmful emissions.

Nouchi says the 60-foot articulated buses will be among the last the city electrifies because of current technology: the heavy weight of their batteries and the limited range of those batteries.

The articulated buses, which can seat 54 people, operate on some of O‘ahu’s busiest routes. However, some roads and highways exclude their use: For example, 40-foot buses ply the Mākaha to Ala Moana Center’s Route C instead of the heavier 60-foot ones because of the weight limit on a bridge near Mākaha Beach Park, according to Nouchi.

“We don’t necessarily want to be carrying thousands and thousands of pounds of batteries onboard these already heavy, articulated 60-foot buses,” he says. “The impact to the roadways would be pretty terrible, and the cost would actually be quite extravagant.” DTS plans to stop buying diesel buses after fiscal year 2025.

Hawaii Business got an exclusive tour inside of the Kalihi Bus Facility’s maintenance department, where buses are constantly being repaired, fixed and upgraded. 

Some Cost More Than $1 Million

OTS also acquired 30 new 60-foot articulated buses prior to the latest Nova Bus deal. These fuel-efficient diesel buses went into service last year.

Some of the new 60-foot buses, made by New Flyer Industries, feature vinyl seating, woodlike floors, beach designs by the doors, and cameras that feed a security monitor next to the driver’s seat.

Every bus has custom-built seating arrangements, interior colors, windows and bike racks, based on city requests. The vinyl seats on the new buses are easier to clean than the fabric ones on older buses –  a nod to the pandemic and passenger sensibilities, Nouchi says.

A 60-foot heavy duty, clean diesel articulated bus costs about $1.1 million, according to DTS. A 40-foot diesel bus costs $600,000, but a diesel/hybrid is an additional $100,000; 40-foot electric buses can cost over $1 million.

Nouchi says the federal government covers 80% of the cost of a new bus, and the city pays 20%. The OTS fleet has about 466 buses, including 17 electric buses now in service, with 50 to 60 new buses ordered in a typical year.

Repurposing Old Busses

The minimum life of a city bus is 12 years or 500,000 miles, Nouchi says, though many run well past that – some operate for more than 20 years. “We run these buses about as hard as any agency in the country,” says Nouchi, noting a lot “have gone over the million-mile mark without a major overhaul.”

But it “gets harder and harder to find parts” as the buses get older, he says. Retired buses are salvaged for parts, though some buses that are still operational get donated to Neighbor Islands for county bus systems or are auctioned, Nouchi says. Hawai‘i County has received 13 buses from Honolulu for its Hele-On transit system.

Most Honolulu buses can stoop down when stopped so passengers can board more easily, but 15 “high-floor” buses built in 2003 are still running, according to Nouchi.

In 2015, there was a plan to repurpose old city buses into shelters and showers for the homeless. But the plan died because it was “cost prohibitive,” says Jun Yang, who helped spearhead the project. He is currently the homeless coordinator for the state Department of Transportation.

The challenges included where to park the buses, and how to provide water and dispose of wastewater.

“At the end of the day, it became pretty expensive to get one of these done to retrofit a bus,” says Yang.

Getting Ready for Rail

The city plans to open rail’s first 10 miles from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium this summer or early fall and intends to increase bus service to rail stations. TheBus and HandiVan riders who pay fares with HOLO cards can use them on the rail as well.

Bus ridership continues to recover from the pandemic. As of December 2022, it was approximately 37% lower than pre-pandemic levels, according to OTS. But average weekday ridership was 116,795, up 15% from the previous year. As of February 2023, average weekday ridership was 127,640.

By the end of fiscal year 2024, DTS expects to have completed the procurement of another 19 electric buses, for a total of 36.

Currently, OTS has 25 electric vehicle dispensers and can charge 9 buses at a time, but Nouchi says they will eventually have to add charging infrastructure at its two main facilities and other transit centers across the island.

“Electrification is the greatest new, in-place and current thing on our horizon,” he says. “If we burn a gallon of diesel at a power plant and then plug our electric bus in and use the power from that same gallon of diesel — we get five times the mileage for that.

“The benefits are so far-reaching, that it’s hard for us to walk away from it.”

1. Cultivate Connection

Reach out to family and colleagues. It might make you happy to have lunch with a friend. If you are a leader, you could walk around the workplace and connect with your staff. If you are working remotely, reach out to employees with phone calls or thoughtful, personalized text messages.

2. Practice Gratitude

Go to sleep every night or wake up each day saying whatever you are grateful for. We can make it a daily practice, a spiritual practice, to see beauty and feel gratitude for the blessings in our lives. Volunteering at an organization that shares your values can increase the meaningful feelings of giving.

3. Have Fun!

Make your weekend a vacation. Take fun outings with your children or play in the sprinkler – hanging out with a child brings out the kid in you. Watching a comedy or taking a cold shower can make you laugh out loud. Dancing feels great and doesn’t have to look good. Turn on your favorite music and dance how you feel.

4. Exercise Outdoors

Take a break during your workday by walking around the block. Play a round of golf or take a sunset walk on the beach after work. How about getting a mini-trampoline for your home? It moves the lymph and boosts the immune system. Hiking or swimming in the ocean can be exhilarating. Nature brings joy to the soul.

5. Rest and Rejuvenate

Take a break from screens and read a calming book. Recharge by putting up your favorite art or pictures in your office. Look for beauty in the details of people’s faces or inspiring patterns in nature. Sometimes we have to hunt for ways to find moments of happiness, and sometimes we find it by simply changing the way we see the world.

Inflation Swallowed Up Almost All of the Wage Gains Over the Past Five Decades

Hawai‘i’s average annual wages, adjusted for inflation, have only increased 16% since 1969.

Wages have increased more than eightfold since then, but the prices for goods and services in Honolulu have increased a lot too. In 1969, the Consumer Price Index was 39.4; in 2020, it was 286.008 – an increase of more than seven-fold.

The wage data comes from a survey of employers who provided the total number of full- and part-time jobs they have and the total amount of their payroll, says Eugene Tian, chief state economist with the Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. The numbers do not include self-employed jobs.

Tian says the wage increase after accounting for inflation wasn’t bigger due to tourism’s dominant role in the local economy. Tourism jobs often pay low wages and have a higher proportion of female and young workers, who tend to be paid less than their counterparts in other industries, he says.

Wage growth in Hawai‘i has been slower than the U.S. Tian says real wage growth for Hawai‘i was 21.1% between 1990 and 2020; U.S. real wage growth grew 37% during the same period.

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

Wage Growth Lags Far Behind Productivity Growth

One factor that drives wage growth is increases in productivity. After accounting for inflation, productivity in Hawai‘i grew an average 0.76% each year from 1969 to 2020 while wages grew by an average 0.29%

Productivity increases when more output is produced with the same amount of input (such as hours of labor or investments in equipment) or when the same amount of output is produced with less input.

Tian says productivity in Hawai‘i is measured by dividing the real gross domestic product by the total number of jobs. However, this productivity measure only tells part of the story. Increases in investment and technology can also yield increases in productivity, but an econometric analysis and additional data are needed to calculate that impact.

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

Hawai‘i’s Minimum Wage Increases After Years of Stagnation

The state’s minimum wage increased to $12 an hour in October. Under Act 114, passed this year by the state Legislature, the minimum wage will increase $2 every two years until reaching $18 in 2028, making Hawai‘i the first state to enact such a high minimum wage.

Over 192,000 local workers are expected to benefit from this policy, according to the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for workers’ rights. That includes more than 110,000 women and 168,000 workers of color.

Gavin Thornton, executive director of the Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, says this increase is long overdue. The center has pushed for an increase for years, and Thornton says he thinks this year’s efforts were finally successful because of a broader awareness that Hawai‘i’s economy is no longer working for ordinary people.

An estimated 59% of local households experienced financial hardship because of the pandemic – that’s about 78,000 more households than pre-Covid, according to the Hawaii Data Collaborative. Those households include working families that can barely afford housing, transportation, child care, health care and other necessities, plus families living below the poverty level.

Thornton says the minimum wage should be a living wage: “As a society, we should have a principle of anyone that’s working 40 hours a week should be able to put a roof over their head and food on the table,” he says. “My hope is that is gaining broader acceptance.”

He adds $18 an hour is not enough for a minimum wage worker to get by today – and it likely won’t be enough in 2028 because of increases in inflation. Hawai‘i, he says, will need to keep that in mind when 2028 rolls around. “But it’s going to be a dramatic improvement and one we’re very excited about.”

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

How Much Money Local Families Need to Afford Necessities Today

One adult with no children would need to make $18.10 an hour during a 40-hour work-week to pay for basic needs without government or other subsidies. A two-adult family would need to make a combined hourly wage of $23.44, and an adult with a preschooler would need an hourly wage of $31.21. An adult with two children would need $38.14 an hour, and a two-adult family with two children would need to make a combined $41.04 an hour.

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

These numbers come from DBEDT’s self-sufficiency family budgets. The department established these budgets in 2008 at the request of the Legislature and updates them every other year.

The budgets assume that adults are working full time and reflect costs of housing, food, transportation, child care, health care, taxes, and miscellaneous expenses such as for personal care, house-hold supplies, telephone bills and bank fees.

It’s More Common for People to Hold Multiple Jobs in Hawai‘I Than Elsewhere in the U.S.

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

The percentage of local workers with more than one job has been declining over the last 27 years. The number of people holding multiple jobs typically decreases during recessions because workers may lose their second or third gigs, Tian says. It typically takes about seven years for the job market to recover after a recession.

Tian adds that it’s hard to say exactly why the percentage of people with multiple jobs is shrinking, but one possible reason is that workers have other ways to make money, such as off-the-books jobs.

“It is possible that people get paid by cash and do not need to report as multi-job holders,” he says. “This means the underground economy may be increasing. We don’t have data to do estimates.”

Wages generally only make up 53% of total income, and many higher-income families, for example, supplement those wages with income from investments. Low-income workers mostly get their earnings from wages and government assistance.

Here’s How Much Debt Hawai‘I Households Have and What Those Debts Are For

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

No surprise, mortgages make up the biggest chunk of most residents’ debt, according to DBEDT’s 2021 Data Book. The share of mortgage debt as a percentage of all household debt has ranged from a low of 71% of total debt in 2002 to a high of 81% in 2007, 2009 and 2010. In 2021, mortgages made up 78% of total debt.

Mortgages made up 70% of household debt for the U.S. in 2021, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

But locals have one of the lowest shares of student loan debt in the nation, Tian says. In 1999, student loans made up 1% of total debt in Hawai‘i. That share gradually increased to 5%, where it’s been since 2013. Tian says this is partially attributed to the rising cost of higher education, but the low percentage compared with the rest of the United States also points to the fact that many local students are supported by their families. The national rate was 10% in 2021.

Plus, resident tuition at the University of Hawai‘i is often lower than tuition at mainland schools. Tian says: “The student loans include Hawai‘i residents who went to schools on the mainland as well. Culture and lower tuition at UH system are the main reasons” for the relatively low student debt load in the Islands.

Housing Prices Outpace Wages for Both Buyers and Renters

Over the last 11 years, the median sales price of a single-family home in Hawai‘i increased 81% and condo prices 65% – far more than average wages increased.

Between 2010 and 2020, average annual wages – not adjusted for inflation – increased only 39%. (2021 wages not yet available.)

Kaua‘i County saw the largest price increase for single-family homes between 2010 and 2021 at 121% and for condos at 127%.

But the largest year-over-year increases were seen during the pandemic. Statewide, the median price of a single-family home jumped 18% from 2020 to 2021; condo prices increased 13% (single-family homes: $880,000; condos: $510,000). Kelly Liberatore, president of the statewide Hawai‘i Realtors association, says the housing market was inundated with multiple offers brought on by high demand, record low mort-gage rates and limited supply. The market hadn’t seen anything like that in the past.

Gross median rents statewide increased by 31% between 2010 and 2020. O‘ahu gross median rents increased the most at 36%, followed by Hawai‘i and Kaua‘i counties, which both had 20% increases. These percentages are based on five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Such estimates were not yet available for 2021. According to the Hawaii Data Collaborative, these numbers offer little insight into the pandemic’s impacts on rents as Covid hindered the Census Bureau’s data collection in 2020.

Justin Tyndall, an assistant professor of economics at UH’s Economic Research Organization, says asking rents – based on Craigslist data – have steadily increased during the pandemic. Median asking rents in the first eight months of this year were up 10.9% statewide, 11.1% on O‘ahu, 36.6% on Maui and 9.4% on Hawai‘i Island compared with the same period in 2021. The sample size on Kaua‘i is too small to accurately report.

Tyndall says Maui asking rents have increased so dramatically because its supply has not kept up with demand. While there are some new affordable rental housing projects in the works, such as the 120-unit Kaiāulu O Halele‘a in Kīhei, the 200-unit Kaiāulu o Kūku‘ia in Lahaina, the 324-unit Kaulana Mahina in Wailuku and others, Tyndall says it’s not enough. According to the 2019 Hawai‘i Housing Planning Study, Maui needs 5,799 new rental units between 2020 and 2025 and 4,605 more ownership units.

“In the scheme of the whole market, it’s a pretty small amount, and the amount that has actually come online is even much smaller,” he says. “So I think ultimately it’s a story about a lack of housing options for people. It’s going to, over the long run, drive up rents.”

State Median Sales Prices

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

• The number of cost-burdened homeowners has decreased over the last decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Cost-burdened means homeowners paid at least 30% of their household incomes on housing. In 2010, 48% of local homeowners with mortgages spent at least 30% of their household incomes on housing. That declined to 39% in 2018, where it remained through 2020.

• In 2020, median-income families were earning 96.5% of the qualifying income needed for a mortgage on a median-priced single-family home, according to UH’s Economic Research Organization. This assumes that 30% of after-tax income is used for mortgage payments.

• In 2020, median-income families were earning 158.6% of the qualifying income needed for a mortgage on a median-priced condo.

• The number of cost-burdened renters has remained relatively consistent, hovering between 55% and 57% over the last 10 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Cost-burdened means renters paid at least 30% of their household incomes on housing.

Honolulu Residents Are Spending More on Housing and Less on Other Things

Source: DBEDT 2021 Data Book

Increased housing costs have meant fewer dollars going to things like entertainment, alcohol, clothes, personal care and reading.

Locals spent 104% more on utilities, fuel and public services in 2019-2020 compared with 20 years ago. Tian says this increase is mainly due to the higher cost of electricity, water and cell-phone and internet service.

Plus, there are more vehicles per household. More dollars were also put toward gasoline and motor oil. Locals spent $1,176 on gas and motor oil in 2000-2001 compared with $1,670 in 2019-2020. Tian says the price of gasoline decreased by 8.7% between 2010 and 2020, so the increase in spending came from the larger number of vehicles per household.

Meanwhile, expenditures for personal insurance and pensions increased 65%. This was mostly due to contributions for pensions and Social Security, rather than life and other personal insurance.

He says vintage aloha work shirts are a centerpiece of this “community museum” on Halekauwila Street, which rents, trades and sells select items. But visitors often gravitate to the sports treasures, such as UH bomber jackets in shiny Kelly green.

One elderly visitor let them display his rare Hawaiians jersey, which was a pro football team that played in 1974 and 1975.

The name “Old Queen Street Stadium” is an amalgamation of a pop-up store that Faller ran at an uncle’s Queen Street restaurant and the Honolulu Stadium in Mō‘ili‘ili, demolished in 1976, which was the “epicenter of old Honolulu culture.”

Faller says they try to capture that history through clothing and stories. “One of our success indicators is when someone comes back with their keiki or grandparents.”

Beginnings: “Growing up, my dad and my mom would always make sure we had dessert in the fridge. A tub of ice cream was one of them.”

His passion for ice cream continued beyond childhood and he began to make it at home in 2016 for family and friends. He thought it was a lot better than what was sold in stores.

Company’s Origin: “The idea for Sage Creamery started after my brother had passed away in 2018. He had cancer and it was really abrupt: Four months after the diagnosis, he passed.”

Villanueva created the business in his brother’s honor. His brother’s name was Daniel, but he was wise beyond his years, so people called him “Sage.”

Zachary Villanueva had been working full time at Kō Hana Distillers but the pandemic gave him more time to make ice cream and he eventually made the company his full-time job.

Ingredients: “Things like vanilla, chocolate, coffee, honey, even tea, we’ll work with other vendors here in Hawai‘i and collaborate with them to make flavors. Our vanilla we get from Laie Vanilla Co. Our coffee is from Kailua at ChadLou’s Coffee Roasters and our honey is from Mānoa Honey & Mead. Our focus is on the ingredients and highlighting them through ice cream.”

How It’s Made: “Our ice cream base is a mixture of milk, cream, sugar and egg yolks. We purée fruit or sometimes we steep lavender flowers or vanilla beans for a few days and let those flavors coalesce into the ice cream. Sometimes we’ll also do inclusions – the things that you add to your ice cream after it’s churned.”

Flavors: Ice cream flavors are mainly chosen based on the time of the year and what Villanueva and his co-workers like to eat.

“My favorite flavor is vanilla ice cream and being able to source it locally from the North Shore is a plus for us.”

They also pay attention to other businesses and their successes. Their mango cheesecake ice cream was inspired by the popular mango cheesecake dessert at Diamond Head Market & Grill, Villanueva’s wife’s family business and where the couple previously worked.

“Our most recent collaboration was with Holey Grail Donuts, popular for their maple glaze doughnuts. So we made vanilla maple ice cream.”

Growth: “When we started, we were making ice cream in our garage, then we grew and eventually moved into our own commercial kitchen.”

The company now sells at farmers markets across O‘ahu. Coming soon are a shop in Ho‘opili and an ice cream truck.

Motivation: “At the end of the day, it’s ice cream. We’re in the job of making people happy. If they’re happy, then we’re happy.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

On Wednesday and Friday evenings, members of Hawaii Float Sessions gather across from BikeFactory Hawaii in Kaka‘ako for a scenic ride to Waikīkī on their Onewheels: self-balancing single-wheel electric skateboards.

“Onewheels changed my life,” says Jay Gatchalian, co-founder of the group. “It saved me so much money on gas and I’ve met some of the most awesome people in the Onewheel community.”

A Onewheel moves when the rider places both feet on the board, and because it’s self-balancing, you don’t have to be a gymnast to use it. It is one of the many personal electric vehicles that are convenient for short trips and reduce their owners’ carbon footprints. And PEVs can be just plain fun to ride.

Ephraim Botulan, another co-founder of Hawaii Float Sessions, says people with other PEVs like electric bicycles, skateboards and scooters are also welcome at the group’s community rides and other experiences. Its Facebook group has over 400 members.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Ground transportation accounts for 47% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2021 Hawai‘i State Energy Office report. The office also estimates that 60% of trips in Hawai‘i are under 3 miles, ideal for PEVs, which are far more energy efficient than cars.

Honolulu has the highest potential for micromobility to succeed, according to a 2019 ranking of 10 U.S. cities by mobility analytics company Inrix. Micromobility is defined as transportation over short distances with lightweight vehicles. The study cited Honolulu’s warm climate and frequency of short trips.

Iniki Gallway of E Bikes Hawaii | Photo by: Aaron Yoshino

Changing Demographic

Iniki Galway commutes to work on her electric bike from Kalihi to Kapahulu – about 3.5 miles – and says she “generally feels safe” along the way.

Galway is marketing manager of Ebikes Hawaii, an electric bike store with locations in Honolulu and Kapolei. She says when the store first opened in Honolulu in 2013, “the demographic was a lot different.”

A lot of customers were in their 60s, some with “mobility issues,” she says. But in the last three to five years, e-bikes have become “insanely popular among younger generations.”

One of Ebikes Hawaii’s cheapest models costs around $1,199; the most expensive ones can cost up to $8,000.

Users Of Many Ages

On its social media platforms, Hawaii Business Magazine asked people what micromobility vehicles they use and why. Sixteen people of varying ages responded: Three were in their 20s, five in their 30s, four in their 40s and four over 50. One person said they use an e-scooter, three use e-bikes, six use a Onewheel and three use an e-unicycle. One person said they use an e-bike and e-scooter, another uses a Onewheel and e-scooter, and one other uses a Onewheel and e-unicycle.

Ephraim Botulan of Hawaii Float Sessions | Photo by: Aaron Yoshino

Ryan Nakazaki, who was a policy fellow at Blue Planet Foundation when we talked to him, worked closely with government officials and partners to create programs and projects that reduce carbon emissions from buildings and vehicles. He would commute to work on TheBus or by bike and does not own a car.

He says micromobility vehicles support “mode shift,” meaning they get people out of their cars and into cleaner modes of transportation. Achieving mode shift is a challenge, Nakazaki admits, as “people are reluctant to give up cars because of the flexibility” they provide.

But micromobility vehicles have many uses. For instance, on long trips, they often solve the “first mile, last mile problem” – the distance commuters need to travel from their homes to their transit stops, or from their transit stops to their destinations, Nakazaki says.

Changing Transportation’s Future

Kaimukī resident Mackenzie Walsh and her husband moved to O‘ahu in 2019, already intending to be bike commuters. She says e-bikes are convenient because finding and paying for car parking is a hassle.

“The bike itself is extremely affordable compared to a car and the maintenance required on one,” says Walsh.

She says that in addition to commuting to work, she and her husband use e-bikes when they go surfing or run errands within a 2-mile radius.

The 34-year-old admits bike riding feels “a little bit dangerous” and does not think “the majority of people in Hawai‘i care about bikers.”

She describes riding along the Ala Wai Canal, with walkers and joggers crowding the bike lane. Once, she says, she tried to get the attention of a woman blocking the way, but the jogger didn’t notice because she had headphones on.

Beware Of Road Rage Drivers

‘Āina Haina resident and e-bike rider Michael Keany echoes these concerns and mentions another. He says he’s been hit by cars and that “road rage people” have hopped out of their vehicles to try to fight him.

“Some car drivers just really have an adversarial relationship with bikes,” says Keany, who has been a cyclist for decades.

He says Honolulu’s “bike-ability” has improved over the years. When he first started riding, he says, there were no bike lanes and competing for space with cars was scary.

More Bike Lanes

That is something the city is working on: creating more designated bike lanes and increasing its bikeway network.

According to the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services, O‘ahu has 220 miles of on- and off-road bikeways, including shared-use paths, conventional bike lanes and shared roadways. A 2019 update to O‘ahu’s bike plan calls for an additional 575 miles of bikeways, which includes 325 miles to be created by the city. The remaining 250 miles proposed are under state or private jurisdiction. The Department of Transportation Services says there is no set timetable to create the additional miles, but the city aims to complete Phase I within five years.

Providing the proper infrastructure for micromobility vehicles, Nakazaki says, encourages more people to use them, and the South King Street protected bike lane, which was completed in 2014, is an example of that.

Bicycle ridership along the South King route before the protected bike lane was installed was 55 per day, according to DTS. After the bike lane was installed, the numbers increased to 331 per day.

Related Stories: O‘ahu’s Mobility Hubs Will Make Ditching the Car More Attractive, How Rail Got to $12.45 Billion and 11 Years Late,  O‘ahu’s Buses Are Crowded Again and Riders Worry, The Resilient City Emerging

Growing Acceptance Of Rentals

As of August 2020, there were more than 260 shared micromobility systems in the U.S., including those for docked and dock-less bikeshares and e-scooters, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The national survey found that half of those systems shut down early in the pandemic, either temporarily or permanently.

But rental scooter company Go X launched during the pandemic, and co-founder Khodor Salam says ridership is increasing on O‘ahu. After about a year of operations, Salam says, Go X has had enough rides to basically circle O‘ahu 1,400 times.

Problems In The Past

Honolulu has had issues with e-scooters in the past: Lime, a global e-scooter company, ran into trouble with the city government in 2018 because the company and its customers left their scooters on city sidewalks. There was also confusion back then about where people could ride the e-scooters; they were classified as mopeds, which are not supposed to be operated on sidewalks.

City and state laws ban PEVs from sidewalks. And a law that took effect in 2021 classifies e-scooters separately from mopeds, though the sidewalk prohibition remains.

Go X e-scooters can be picked up and dropped off at more than 50 locations in Waikīkī, such as hotels and stores. Customers find the e-scooters and pay for them using a phone app.

Salam says the company and its app reinforce safety messages for riders. He explains that when a customer picks up an e-scooter, the app outlines scooter laws in the city, and as customers ride, they get another notification reminding them to follow local traffic laws and to keep off sidewalks.

Salam says the company has not had a single safety incident since it started, and that customers rarely leave their scooters on sidewalks or roadways. Go X’s system detects when a scooter has been abandoned, stolen or broken.

Biki Still Going

Honolulu’s bikeshare system, Biki, almost went under during the pandemic but survived “the shock of reduced riders and supply chain issues,” says Bikeshare Hawaii Executive Director Todd Boulanger.

This year, Biki celebrated its fifth anniversary and reached over 5 million rides – equivalent to 11 million miles ridden on Biki bikes, according to Boulanger. The nonprofit says it has over 100 stops and 1,000 bikes in its fleet.

According to a 2021 report from Biki, the bikes are used most in Waikīkī (38%) and the Ala Moana/Kaka‘ako area (27%); 19% of Biki users reported using the bikes to connect to TheBus.

Electric Biki?

Boulanger says Biki is considering adding e-bikes and “waiting for that broader community discussion.” Biki has a prototype of an electric bike called “E-Fit” that it says has been successfully tested in Barcelona, Spain; Monaco; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santiago, Chile.

Boulanger notes that Biki was supposed to open at the same time as Honolulu’s rail system. But the train’s still not running, and he says the city should “double down or triple down” on its support for Biki to help riders get to their destinations, especially if rail does not make it all the way to Ala Moana Center.

The city provided a $1 million grant to Biki in 2014-15 for pre-launch work but no financial support since then. Biki operations rely on fare revenue, sponsorship and grants, Boulanger says. “However, they are critical partners in the areas of station hosting and permitting,” he says.

Those areas include the buildout of protected bikeway networks and other Complete Streets projects “that give Biki customers a safer place to ride.” The pandemic demonstrated another reason micromobility vehicles are valuable, Boulanger says.

“The city leadership realized we were an essential service because people were looking for alternatives because they didn’t want to be inside TheBus or Uber during Covid.”

Growing Numbers Of Electric Cars And Trucks

Honolulu has 598,028 registered passenger vehicles, according to the city’s 2021 sustainability report. Electric vehicle registrations, meanwhile, jumped from 9,644 in 2020 to 12,240 in 2021.

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Owner Roger Bong sells vinyl records at his new brick-and-mortar, AGS, located in the old McCully Chop Suey building on South King Street. The store stocks more than a thousand new and vintage titles, which are also available on its website.

Vinyl is making a comeback, says Bong, and reaching a wider audience than just hardcore collectors. Young people are now exploring AGS’ independent Hawai‘i labels that “put out jazz, funk, electronic and all kinds of music you wouldn’t expect from the Islands.”

Photo: Aaron Yoshino

Bong’s own Aloha Got Soul label started in 2015 with the vinyl and dig-ital reissue of Mike Lundy’s 1979 LP, “The Rhythm of Life,” still its best-seller. A surprise hit was the 2021 reissue of Eddie Suzuki’s “psychedelic lounge” album called “High Tide.”

The label presses its records in Ohio and ships much of the stock to distributors on the West Coast and Japan, where it has many customers. In return, local fans of ’80s city pop from Japan can pick up rare finds right in Mō‘ili‘ili.

Photo: Aaron Yoshino

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