KAPA‘A — One of Kaua‘i’s first roundabouts, at the intersection of Olohena Road and the Kapa‘a bypass road, has made life easier for drivers.
But to the pedestrians who live at the nearby Apopo Hale complex, it may have added an extra hazard.
The poorly-designed crosswalks, striped exactly where cars enter the roundabout, pose a danger to residents of the housing complex who walk to the Kapa‘a New Park and downtown Kapa‘a.
Drivers must simultaneously pay attention to oncoming cars and crossing pedestrians.
“We have a lot of pukas on Kaua‘i where we put amenities, but have not connected them right. This was one of the pukas,” Councilman Tim Bynum said.
A fix, however, is on the way.
Deputy County Engineer Ed Renaud said the county Department of Public Works will correct the problem before the next school year starts, which is late next month or early August.
When the state of Hawai‘i Department of Transportation built the roundabout, it put no pedestrian accommodations, which prompted concerns from the community.
“So the state retrofitted a walkway in there, but it wasn’t designed appropriately for a roundabout,” Bynum said.
A “well-designed” roundabout should set the crosswalk at least one car length back from where cars merge into the roundabout. The crosswalk at the Kapa‘a roundabout sits right where cars enter it.
Another roundabout, connecting Po‘ipu and Lawa‘i roads in Po‘ipu, was designed in a way that the crosswalk is approximately one car length from the merging point, deeming it safer.
The access to Kapa‘a Middle School is also going through renovations.
County DPW will add a cement stairway on the bottom of Olohena Road. Children who walk to the school should be able to utilize the stairway when school is back, Renaud said.
The pathway to the school will not meet federal Americans with Disabilities Act standards because the road leading to the school is too steep, therefore not feasible for ADA accommodations. The new roundabout crosswalks, however, will meet ADA standards.
The first roundabout built in the U.S. was only 20 years ago, in Nevada, and they’re increasingly gaining popularity here. France, with over 30,000 roundabouts, is home to roughly half of the world’s roundabout.
It was 2007 when Steve Kyono, then state Department of Transportation Highways Division district engineer, promised improvements mainly designed to make it safer for Kapa‘a Middle School students to walk from campus to downtown Kapa‘a, said Jerome “Da Shadow” Freitas, a local community-safety advocate.
County spokeswoman Mary Daubert said on May 14 that DPW would request a County Council resolution requesting establishment of a Malu Road crosswalk. As of June 7, no such request has come before the council, said Jay Furfaro, council vice chair.
Daubert said later that, due to internal DPW concerns, the resolution wasn’t forwarded to the council in a timely manner.
“We gave ‘em a lot of chances already,” Freitas said of the regular requests for sidewalks, crosswalks and other safety improvements mainly for the middle-school students who walk from the Olohena Road campus into downtown Kapa‘a daily after school.
“It’s not fair to the general public,” he said.
Olohena Road and other portions of the route are technically state roads, so they need state Department of Transportation approval and funding for improvements.
But Malu Road is a county road, and establishment of a crosswalk only takes council approval in resolution form and a few coats of white paint at the site from a DPW crew.
It was a county crew that last year removed a rotting, unsafe wooden staircase between Olohena and Malu roads after a story about the issue appeared in The Garden Island.
Freitas first commented on the safety concerns near the roundabout back in 2005, also when Kyono was in charge of DOT-Highways on Kaua‘i.
On another matter brought forward by Freitas, Daubert said in an e-mail the Kapa‘a Beach Park fence along Kuhio Highway has been given a temporary repair job by a crew from the county Department of Parks and Recreation, and that department is now in the process of requesting competitive bids for a project to permanently repair or replace the fence.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@kauaipubco.com.
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
