[{"_1":2,"_99":-5,"_100":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75,87],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},"mediaId",6187057,"mediaKeyId","5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147","parentId",5072015,"title","DIT outlines modernization plan, flags COBOL mainframe risk and 20,000 open 3‑1‑1 tickets","audioSeconds",197,"startMs",5471000,"endMs",5668000,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147&start=5471&end=5668","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147/thumbnail_5471000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6187057/Honolulu-City/Honolulu-County/Hawaii/DIT-outlines-modernization-plan-flags-COBOL-mainframe-risk-and-20000-open-311-tickets","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6187057-148bc8643aa3f661391b0741a894acad/orig.mp4?Expires=1771160757&Signature=ozd~hVvh9LhazjXJ7wGd4KZReFlXLI97D2JHx1cQ-ExCvAM~Yec0-TQ4Mvq4iGdpgfena64N0im-wwZz7fA1ORV4yZ8vvb8vMe~Tifr80hNyARgFnx4tSYEV90LYUhFo92BfEu1QlujgtnhZpYjkp9HrkdI~hDi-VIU1BpbVWCsnvSYqwpyAV5rEX0DE4JZutLP5eEb4vhIQKo~trnWzxC9LjGVrespxv-xg94UonGxGmRSd82ArIXMeLWiwIp4xLgH5ZtrFb7ACmbdVpmGymzhlSuFuJB1-V2KTfkD-C33n7djERxumWAxqLhsI2SGgNSQ4dnBx2We9geUMPWbjuA__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","City Council of Honolulu, HI","date","2025-06-26T09:07:37Z","article","The City’s Department of Information Technology presented a multi-part plan to modernize legacy systems, consolidate duplicate tools and reduce operational risk from aging infrastructure that staff said is costly to maintain.

“We've been running DIT kind of on a shoestring for years,” Director and Chief Information Officer Brian McKee told the committee, framing the modernization needs.

McKee said vehicle-registration and driver-license functions still rely on a COBOL-based mainframe (IMS/CICS) with only two remaining COBOL programmers in the department. “I used to have 20 and now I have 2 left,” McKee said, describing the staffing and maintenance risk for legacy code. The department is evaluating options to replace the mainframe system; McKee identified the FAST off‑the‑shelf system (common in other states) with a quoted implementation cost between $60 million and $67 million, and a more modular state-developed solution (Max) used by Arizona’s DOT that could be shared with other states and that several other states are adopting.

McKee also addressed public-facing systems: the HNL software suite (payments and event ticketing), AlohaQ queuing at motor-vehicle offices, a DPR reservation system and the Lokahi GIS platform. He said Lokahi holds many internal datasets and the department is vetting what can be published publicly because of personally identifiable information and other sensitivities.

The director flagged 3‑1‑1 and DART replacement work and the problem of open tickets: “We have 20,000 open tickets right now in the current system,” McKee said. He described causes that include unactionable entries, tickets that were completed operationally but not closed in the system, and drop-down menu categorizations that route items incorrectly; DIT said it is redesigning the intake taxonomy and pursuing a work-order integration that will allow automatic closure when a relevant operational system completes the task.

On emerging technology, McKee said DIT has an in‑house NVIDIA machine and is piloting voice and chat AI tools for customer service and internal productivity. The department is also planning cloud migration for its ERP (CGI Advantage) and continuing telecom and radio upgrades, including a phased rollout of P25 radios with encryption; McKee said the city will receive several hundred radios per year from the police department’s replacements and must coordinate encryption rollouts across agencies to avoid interoperability loss.

Applications chief Nancy Vo noted the HNL payment and events systems are developed in‑house and that DIT is discussing onboarding some Department of Enterprise Services functions to HNL Pay when existing vendor contracts (Ticketmaster, etc.) expire. McKee said DIT has about 160 staff working on projects and stressed the need for prioritized budget investments to retire unsupported software and purchase modern tools for work and asset management.

Committee members asked about the municipal homeless-management tools, capacity for AI compute and utility needs, and next steps to reduce open tickets; DIT said it is coordinating cross‑department pilots and will present deeper technical briefings on request. No formal action was taken at the hearing.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","2025-06-25 Infrastructure, Transportation & Technology","oneSentenceSummary","Director and Chief Information Officer Brian McKee told the committee the department needs to retire legacy systems (including a COBOL mainframe), consolidate work-management tools, migrate the ERP to cloud, and address 20,000 open 3‑1‑1 tickets while testing AI tools and a city GIS platform.","taxTitle","Honolulu City, Honolulu County, Hawaii","taxId",61746,"location","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":78,"_43":79,"_45":80,"_47":81,"_49":82,"_51":83,"_53":84,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":85,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":86,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6187062,"Safe Routes to School coordinator outlines funding history, program services and crossing-guard bottlenecks",315,1902000,2217000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147&start=1902&end=2217","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147/thumbnail_1902000.jpg","/articles/6187062/Honolulu-City/Honolulu-County/Hawaii/Safe-Routes-to-School-coordinator-outlines-funding-history-program-services-and-crossing-guard-bottlenecks","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6187062-7c60c11f763c6dd8b2eea3be022ef45b/orig.mp4?Expires=1771160757&Signature=MCIjU9QYu-aKWgOEbbujtriWN2u-AGPGocXGnkn3X9w3B-WKUKAV1GKdYU6VbTzEYsLXQoIMgavuepzZLjV-GzbQR5eVN2BMmyNVtaNKiCyVWciY7xrgMM1NlptHN2sgYR~ClKxN9zi06z546wBNi714Fsvi9RElfxmRwFabI3pRGxNx69CR5frlscBg5iktFgJfxhYJK1HFV5XTCLLNa6Eagygra22HGzrejoU3WjmYXleuwzuHb6WDpkr6OQPRwtHMRWKikfVgyc54L8HOrKZp3ubih9A2jKYeDijobmOiBcZpIb8g9lC5tsP3QmH2~pXc9P3REpa3zrBuXESgog__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","City transportation staff told the Council committee the Safe Routes to School program coordinates infrastructure recommendations, school-level outreach and small grants but has faced multi-year interruptions in the state special-fund distributions that historically supported the work.

“Most of the funds were used for infrastructure, but we have used about 11% for non infrastructure,” Safe Routes to School coordinator Yamato Sasaki said, describing how previous distributions were spent.

Sasaki and Transportation Engineering Division Chief Kelly Akasaki told the committee the program supports all K–12 schools on Oahu, performs walk audits, provides education materials and distributes small “care packages” to schools that lead walk-to-school activities. The coordinator said the walk zone the program evaluates can extend from 1 mile to 1.5 miles from a school and that she focuses both on the 1,000-foot school zone and the larger walk shed when making infrastructure recommendations.

Sasaki gave a timeline of the Safe Routes program and funding: the special fund was created by statute (noted in the meeting as 291C-4) and initially distributed from federal sources; funds were received from about 2014 until 2020, after which the program relied on federal grants and Department of Health grants. The coordinator said the program received roughly $2.5 million total from 2014 to 2025; the meeting record also noted that the legislature deposited $20 million into the special fund in 2023 but that funds had not yet been fully distributed or expended for county projects.

The committee pressed staff on crossing-guard availability. Sasaki and Akasaki said the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) manages the crossing-guard program and that current policy requires a school to recruit a candidate and submit that person to HPD for vetting, physical exam and training; that process can take roughly six months. Akasaki said the program’s operational steps and necessary HPD approvals make filling vacancies difficult and that many current crossing guards are kupuna. “It takes roughly 6 months,” Akasaki said of the HPD approval timeline.

On compensation, staff told the committee the current paid rate for crossing guards is about $19.50 per hour for roughly two hours a day when school is in session. Akasaki said there are about 20 crossing guards islandwide and that the number fluctuates; staff estimated roughly 70 elementary campuses are in contexts where crossing guards could be used. Committee members also discussed whether HPD could take a larger public role in recruitment or whether alternative program models (privatized deployment, school-led recruitment) might shorten the approval timeline; staff said they had compiled working-group notes and were willing to share suggestions with council members.

Sasaki said the Safe Routes program spends most money on infrastructure projects (examples cited included the $1.9 million Keiki Corridor at Fern Elementary) and small non-infrastructure mini-grants (one example: a $3,500 contribution to a Blue Zones project). The coordinator said the program also runs education events, summer presentations and the Hawaii Bicycling League’s bike-education programming.

No formal Council action occurred; staff said further funding allocations would be governed by the HDOT advisory process for the state Safe Routes to School special fund and that the department will continue identifying projects to recommend to the advisory committee.","Safe Routes to School staff described the program’s scope, funding history and infrastructure and education activities, and discussed the state special fund and operational hurdles with crossing guard recruitment and deployment through HPD.",{"_33":88,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":89,"_41":90,"_43":91,"_45":92,"_47":93,"_49":94,"_51":95,"_53":96,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":97,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":98,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6187066,"Honolulu begins phased rollout of 20 mph school-zone speed limits under Bill 44",576,288000,864000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147&start=288&end=864","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5072015-6452726b728a06a7d43bd30cb4ae9147/thumbnail_288000.jpg","/articles/6187066/Honolulu-City/Honolulu-County/Hawaii/Honolulu-begins-phased-rollout-of-20-mph-school-zone-speed-limits-under-Bill-44","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6187066-4d812434ef48a31518a56790e27a9b22/orig.mp4?Expires=1771160757&Signature=G-Q3VA1E55e9cQeiysJpDpFa-ToTbfKkch7hTyKo8Tvj4JJ7z62Sed-PKUXAYh9UY4F6~-py-ui-VwjaNy-Wkbg05jKqvw2p3k2yCXIvRWubL84~QzJ8g6ABCouTPh2Yw5RID8vn1B8gxIQEWXdh4n8M5kgiT4IVs8gxti6-uMHj24UbWAHWK5EpGCD389O4dr87JL-IzDM3Yu4u3OiRqcya2TnqWMRMjS-OOYITt9KcFBfznV9VmtowajOoCSUjRPr0KqvthzWP588Pf1G9ZabNPQ54eCmwVE9OtwyqYpkE30gOOI7H88SmZ7jWO6h1hzmQ7vdms9u~6gzsPY2v2w__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","The City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services told the City Council committee it has begun a phased effort to put the new 20 miles-per-hour school-zone classification from Bill 44 into practice and to install the related signs and traffic-calming measures.

“Under that 20 mile per hour classification, we made that now the new default speed limit,” Complete Streets Administrator Renee Espio said, summarizing the primary change in Bill 44.

The ordinance created a new 20 mph classification for school zones and made 20 mph the default speed where a different limit is not otherwise posted; staff presented the technical steps and resource constraints involved in changing signage and implementing accompanying traffic-calming projects. The department estimated there are roughly 600 to 800 school-zone speed signs that need replacement and said it has not received additional permanent staffing for the work.

DTS described three funding avenues it is pursuing. Administrator Espio said the department applied to the state Safe Routes to School committee for approximately $1 million to replace signs islandwide and that the Council included a $500,000 council ad for the next fiscal year that DTS plans to request the administration to release. “We are grateful that we got a council ad for 500,000 in next fiscal year, and we are planning to ask the administration for approval to spend that,” Espio said.

Implementation will combine opportunistic updates tied to larger street-rehabilitation projects and more targeted sign-replacement batches. Espio said the department will coordinate sign changes through a mix of DFM (Department of Facility Maintenance) work orders, DDC (Department of Design and Construction) rehabilitation projects and private contractors when funding allows; she said rehab projects can be slow, so DTS will seek faster options when feasible. “If we have a rehab project, we'll jump on that, but those tend to be the longest projects,” Espio said.

Staff stressed that Bill 44 does not automatically change speed limits on state-owned routes. Council Member Diopolo asked about schools that front Farrington Highway; Espio said language added to Bill 44 clarified the 20 mph classification did not apply to state routes, though other counties sometimes slow state highways near schools without an ordinance. “I wasn't sure if that was necessary or a good idea,” Espio said, noting the department can reach out to state DOT about alignment on state routes.

DTS also described non-sign measures already underway: speed humps, raised crosswalks and rehabs on high-injury corridors, some funded and built by state contractors. The department said it will add the 20 mph check to its Complete Streets checklist so rehab projects will consider the new school-zone speed classification during construction.

On outreach, Espio said the statutory requirement establishing the 20 mph school limit limits the department’s public-comment role for setting the baseline speed, but DTS is considering mass communications and neighborhood-level notifications once funding and implementation timing are clearer. The department has started a voluntary distribution program for Vision Zero bumper stickers and yard signs tied to a short pledge form as an interim community-awareness step.

Council members asked about timing, coordination with DFM and DDC crews, volunteer and nonprofit contributions, and whether the state could incorporate the school-zone change into driver education materials; DTS said it would reach out to state partners about those possibilities. No formal votes or ordinance amendments were taken at the committee hearing; staff described planning steps, funding applications and operational coordination as next tasks.

The committee discussion also reiterated that Bill 44 was adopted unanimously by the Council last year and is now statutory direction for DTS to implement school-zone speed reductions and traffic-calming near schools.","City Department of Transportation Services described a phased implementation of a state-mandated 20 mph school-zone speed classification created by Bill 44, citing sign replacement needs, funding applications and coordination with multiple departments for traffic-calming projects.","actionData","errors"]

Article not found

DIT outlines modernization plan, flags COBOL mainframe risk and 20,000 open 3‑1‑1 tickets

Safe Routes to School coordinator outlines funding history, program services and crossing-guard bottlenecks

Honolulu begins phased rollout of 20 mph school-zone speed limits under Bill 44