If you want to get your 2 cents worth in on the future of traffic planning in Honolulu, here's your chance.

The O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization will hold three public meetings next month to solicit public input on transportation plans and projects through 2030.

The meetings will be in Honolulu, Kapolei and Mililani during the week of Sept. 12. For more information, call OMPO at 587-2015.

RAIL SEATS TO SPARE

The Las Vegas monorail celebrated its first birthday last month, and there were plenty of empty seats to go around. The $650 million, 4-mile monorail was supposed to ease congestion on the busy Las Vegas strip, but so far it's not living up to expectations.

During the first six months of operation, the monorail averaged fewer than 30,000 daily riders and a little more than $81,000 in daily fare box revenues, short of the 50,000 riders and $100,000 in fares that officials had hoped for.

While opponents remain skeptical that the monorail will ever prove successful, supporters are talking about expanding it to downtown Las Vegas or the airport, which they say will encourage more ridership.

TRAFFIC OVER TELEPHONE

Arizona officials are experimenting with a program that gives travelers free voice-activated congestion information about even some of the state's most obscure highways.

The program, which cost $1.7 million to build, delivers traffic, weather and tourism information directly to a phone, at least when it's working correctly. Ultimately, the federal government is proposing a nationwide system as one more way to battle traffic congestion.

For now, though, drivers in places such as Arizona say the system is proving spotty, at best.

"The way the information is delivered renders it nearly useless," the publisher of RoadTripAmerica.com told the New York Times. Drivers are still better off using scanners or citizen band radios to get an update on what's ahead.

SCOOTERS IN STYLE

With gasoline prices pushing $3 a gallon, there's renewed interest nationwide in motor scooters.

Sales of the scooters peaked in the 1980s, but dealers across the country are reporting a sudden jump in interest. The largest scooters, which are legal on most highways, cost about $5,000 and can get up to 50 mpg.

MORE RESILIENT ROOFS

The federal government wants automakers to strengthen roofs on cars and light trucks to cut rollover-crash deaths.

Roofs would have to support 2.5 times a vehicle's weight without collapsing, an increase from 1.5 times now, under rules being proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The agency estimates that the new roof rule would prevent as many as 44 deaths and 800 injuries a year while adding just $12 per vehicle to manufacturing costs.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.