• Traffic solution requires serious investment • Some dog breeds are too dangerous • Dairy farm needs exit plan
Traffic solution requires serious investment
I appreciate JoAnn Yukimura’s thoughts in her March 8 Eastside traffic congestion guest opinion and multimodal planning, but I don’t think the south side traffic was or is comparable to Kapaa’s.
Asking developers to kick in “part” of the cost for a circulation study doesn’t really do the trick. In fact, it’s billions short of what’s needed after any solution is agreed upon.
The Kapaa-Wailua Bypass would have required a mauka bridge over the Wailua River but it was abandoned due to the “cost prohibited” amount of $1 billion. That’s just the bridge, not the cost of extending the bypass and certainly not the cost of widening the bypass to four lanes, two in each direction.
Don’t like the sound of four lanes behind town? It’s too late now. We need it just to facilitate the traffic we already have. It is irresponsible to allow any more development in the Eastside corridor until we have the current situation under control.
Or do we say yes to more development even though we cannot afford the cost of traffic solutions like a bridge, for the traffic we’ve got now? Who pays? And who profits? That’s what it amounts to. In the end, we’ll probably take some token mitigation measures because we can’t afford anything more and don’t want to say no to the developers. Sound like a plan? Well that’s the way it’s always been.
Don’t forget to turn your engine off when you are stuck in traffic. It’s more cost effective.
Paulo Tombolo, Wailua Homesteads
Some dog breeds are too dangerous
Once again, a small child is attacked, maimed for life, medevaced to Honolulu, and might die as a result of a dog attack on Kauai.
Of course, the dog that attempted to, and may have successfully murdered this little 2-year-old child, is a pit bull. This dog breed has killed thousands of people in the U.S. and perpetrates approximately 75 percent of human deaths, half of which are children under 4. To put it in easier terms to understand, a pit bull kills a human being every 18 days in America. The second-most effective killer is a Rottweiler, which kills one person every 99 days (dogsbite.org).
Where is the outrage? Parents and neighbors don’t intend for these dogs to kill neighborhood children, but the owner is personally responsible for every death! Anyone who owns one of these breeds — and they kill — should be charged with murder just as if they did it themselves with a gun. Maybe then the more naive among us will obtain a flash of common sense and work to eradicate these breeds from society. One baby’s senseless death is one too many, let alone one every 18 days!
Gordon Oswald, Kapaa
Dairy farm needs exit plan
Doug Wilmore’s thought-provoking letter to the editor makes sense.
He speculates, with global facts to back him up, that the proposed dairy will fail, that this might be the intent of its investors, and that the people of Kauai will be left with the cleanup. We need only look at the 23-year-old ruins of the Coco Palms to imagine with what speed that would occur.
For decades, Kauai County has evaded its responsibility to condemn this rat-generating eyesore. How long would it take the county to clean up an abandoned industrial dairy site? Plans for the dairy must include a county-approved “exit plan,” with a provision that money be held in escrow for restoring the site if the dairy fails. I suspects Mr. Omidyar and Mr. Case have the funds.
Suzan Kelsey Brooks, Lihue
