Casey McGraw, who lives in Kapaa, said it usually takes him 50 minutes to drive to work in Port Allen. On Monday morning, it took him 50 minutes just to get to Wailua. “The light stays green for the people
Casey McGraw, who lives in Kapaa, said it usually takes him 50 minutes to drive to work in Port Allen. On Monday morning, it took him 50 minutes just to get to Wailua.
“The light stays green for the people coming off of Kuamoo Road for several minutes and then it only lets like 12 cars through on the Kuhio Highway. It’s backwards,” McGraw said. “Then I’m late for work and that’s not good.”
The stoplight at Kuamoo Road and Kuhio Highway has been throwing a wrench into Eastside traffic flow since Saturday, when heavy rains caused a short in the system.
Traffic has, at times, been backed up for miles, prompting many drivers to turn around and seek other routes to reach their destinations.
Tim Sakahara, State of Hawaii Department of Transportation spokesman, said crews are still working on the signal, which went haywire again for a while Tuesday night.
Saturday, HDOT crews began working on the repairs and Kauai Police Department also responded to assist with traffic control until the signal was functioning, Sakahara said.
The problem wasn’t fixed in time for commuters to get to work on Monday, though, and over the last few days motorists reported the drive from Kapaa to Wailua taking almost an hour to complete.
Randy Roe, who lives in the Wailua Houselots, loaded his Ford Explorer with recyclables and headed to the recycling center Monday. He didn’t get very far.
“As far as I could see there were cars,” he said.
He said he could tell the trip was going to take a long time as traffic slowed to a stop.
“I just basically turned around,” he said.
He estimated at one point, there were about 750 vehicles backed up on Kuhio Highway and the bypass road.
Roe said he monitored the traffic light at Kuhio Highway and Kuamoo Road for about a month last year. He found a correlation between problems with the traffic light and major traffic backups in the area, and sent letters to the state DOT, the mayor’s office and Kauai County Council members outlining his findings.
He said traffic in the area has been flowing OK in recent months until this weekend, when the light malfunctioned.
Roe believes major delays could be prevented if the DOT and Kauai police worked together when a traffic light malfunctions at a key intersection.
Sarah Blane, county spokeswoman, said: “We were in continued communication with DOT on the traffic delays in Wailua-Kapaa and it is my understanding that DOT personnel were able to fully resolve issues with the signal timing on Monday afternoon.”
She also said “For an officer to attempt to direct traffic when a traffic light is working would be extremely dangerous for both the motorists and the officer.”
McGraw said he’d be taking an alternate route home on Tuesday night, just in case, and that could be saving him a little extra time during his commute.
Sakahara said the state’s department of transportation fixed the signal’s timing Monday afternoon, but the fix didn’t stick.
“Unfortunately, the Kuamoo signal just started malfunctioning again,” Sakahara said in an email sent to The Garden Island on Tuesday just before 5 p.m. “HDOT crews are heading to the scene and will troubleshoot the problem tonight.”
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Jessica Else, education reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
