• Bike path funding Bike path funding The bike path being built along the Eastside of Kaua‘i is a good addition to our community’s park system. It will receive use by recreational walkers and bicyclists. Drawbacks to placing an emphasis
• Bike path funding
Bike path funding
The bike path being built along the Eastside of Kaua‘i is a good addition to our community’s park system. It will receive use by recreational walkers and bicyclists.
Drawbacks to placing an emphasis on construction of the path come into focus when it is placed alongside the need for traffic relief on roads coming into Lihu‘e both from Koloa and Kapa‘a.
These ongoing highway problems date back to the years prior to Hurricane ‘Iniki. The months and years following ‘Iniki showed the need for immediate and long-term road building projects. While the state Department of Transportation has done all its can with what’s been available – the Kapa‘a bypass road, tweaking traffic lights, adding two lanes to morning traffic – the problem remains.
When the number of probable users of the bike path system are placed side-by-side with the number of vehicles that use roads coming into Lihu‘e each day, it is easy to see that our highways should be the focus of our efforts by government.
Comments by North Shore resident Alister Paterson in an earlier issue of The Garden Island showed that dozens, if not hundreds, of new units of housing are being opened or under construction on the Island and will make the traffic problem much worse over this first decade of the 21st century.
The Kapa‘a Business Association is holding a roads meeting this week where the new owners of the Coco Palms Resort are to present their views on the traffic situation in the Kapa‘a-Wailua area. This group has been proactive in driving this issue for the past several years. Hopefully this new input will help bring about change.
While we are looking forward to having new sections of the bike path opened to the public, we’d also like to be able to avoid the traffic jams we face before and after work during rush hours. Solutions are out there, and if experience proves right it is going to take public pressure to have them implemented sooner rather than later.
