WAILUA — After a few weeks in plain view on the island’s busiest traffic corridor, the graffiti on the rockwall of the southbound Wailua Bridge was removed Wednesday. The same cannot be said about the graffiti at the bridge’s foundation.
WAILUA — After a few weeks in plain view on the island’s busiest traffic corridor, the graffiti on the rockwall of the southbound Wailua Bridge was removed Wednesday. The same cannot be said about the graffiti at the bridge’s foundation.
State Department of Transportation staff were doing final touches on the graffiti removal work Thursday morning. One of the DOT staff said the work would not address the underside of the bridge, where graffiti is rampant.
The foundations of the southbound bridge are covered with graffiti. There are love declarations, curse words, X-rated drawings, memorial artwork and all sorts of artistic expressions, depending on the observer’s point of view.
Seattle resident Dennis Schmit was walking at Wailua River mouth Thursday morning, enjoying the site of his wedding more than four years ago.
Schmit said graffiti used to be a much bigger problem in his hometown than it is today. But after Seattle officials opened up public spaces for the community to do art, the city became more pleasant.
“Now we have beautiful artwork instead of garbage,” he said of the art replacing scribbles and signatures.
Additionally, a lot of graffiti in Seattle was used as demarcation for street gangs, Schmit said, and the government’s initiative curbed much of it.
Schmit said the last time he saw Wailua was when he got married by the rivermouth in a small ceremony on Sept. 11, 2008. He talked about the beauty and sacredness of Wailua, and will return with his wife later this year to celebrate their five-year anniversary on Sept. 11, 2013.
Schmit’s friends and family, however, will see a different river mouth than the one they only saw through wedding pictures. The reason, Schmit said, is the new northbound Wailua Bridge, inaugurated less than two years ago.
The $29 million northbound structure was officially dedicated May 31, 2011, as part of Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste Memorial Bridge Complex. The northbound bridge also has graffiti on it, with scribbles and signatures on its ocean-facing rail. Under the bridge, there are paintings and more scribbling.
Some of the rocks covering the bridge’s wall have already fallen off. One of the detached rocks was still laying on the ground Thursday, immediately below the place where it had fallen off from.
Around the foundations of both bridges, trash is everywhere; with some of it brought by the ocean and some left behind by beach users.
County spokeswoman Mary Daubert said the trash cleanup under the bridges, the graffiti and the cosmetic damages to the bridge all fall under the jurisdiction of the state DOT.
DOT officials did not respond by press time to a request for comment.
