• Traffic problems Traffic problems The headline of The Garden Island for August 19 “Governor, Mayor unveil traffic relief plan” reminds one of the old hamburger TV ad where the lady says “where’s the beef”. Here we ask, where and
• Traffic problems
Traffic problems
The headline of The Garden Island for August 19 “Governor, Mayor unveil traffic relief plan” reminds one of the old hamburger TV ad where the lady says “where’s the beef”. Here we ask, where and WHEN will the public be given traffic relief?! In fact, the first sentence of the story tells it all, “No government funds are available yet but…”
Turn the clock back 10 years and remember when the DOT held 2 or 3 community meetings concerning a bypass route from Hanamaulu to the Wailua river. The public was given about 7 or 8 choices to pick the most cost effective and best route that could be built. The people picked the route they wanted BUT lo and behold, everything came to a grinding halt. The reason given for the shut down by the DOT was that there were no funds for the designing stage. Of course, the question that would come to mind is why did DOT even start this exercise in futility when no funds were available for design OR even more importantly, for the construction phase?!
Now, fast forward to about January of this year when DOT holds another community meeting on this same bypass route! This time we are told that DOT has the design stage funds but still no money to build it!! What we have here is pure election time rhetoric where our elected officials are giving the public sound bites that they hope will get them reelected—nothing more. The quick fix mentioned in the article to widen sections of the highway is no fix at all and will not solve the problem.
A far better and quicker solution to our traffic problem would be to pave our cane haul roads and open them to the public. The Kapa‘a By-pass was started and finished in nine months according to Steve Kyono of the state Department of Transportation with no EA or EIS required since it was already an existing road, we have miles of these same cane haul roads all over the Island that could be temporary or permanent fixes. And, as Councilman Rapozo so wisely said on his radio show on Friday, we can use our time, resources and money to get $30 to $40 million in federal funds to build an un-needed bike path but we can’t use these same energies to solve a problem that impacts everyone on this Island.
