Protect the North Shore, wait on reopening highway
Protect the North Shore, wait on reopening highway
Please do not open the Kuhio highway from Hanalei to Ke‘e Beach next week.
Basically, only residents, workers and emergency vehicles should be allowed.
Things like vacation rentals can wait. No worries. Kauai will still be there.
By giving more time, a proper shuttle service from Hanalei to Ke‘e Beach can be tested and implemented to cut down on the insane amount of traffic.
More runs of The Kauai Bus from Lihue to Hanalei would result in less cars.
By giving additional time, the infrastructure and rules for proper conduct with respect to the aina can be soundly tested.
If it takes another year, help saving the precious North Shore will have a strong foothold.
Waiting will be well worth it.
Slow down, Kauai.
Gary Saylin, Davis, California
Stop talking Gary. Delaying the opening will just lead to more procrastination. The road is safer than it ever was. The “tribe” of vocal Haena crazy people haven’t done anything to provide solutions. Opening the road will provide pressure to fix things, even if it’s a messy process.
Gary, no worries, brah.
Those of us that actually live here, pay taxes for public access/roadways to come and go as we please. I am glad you want to protect the north shore, but maybe if you would have stayed in California, it would have elevate the traffic and imprint that you guys leave on the island.
Agreed! All island residents should get the access that has been denied to us for quite some time now and Gary and his friends should stay in CA. That will really help Kauai!
Hold up Gary. How’s things in California? Feeling entitled much? You know, we’re too foolish to make decisions for ourselves- can you please send us some of your precious California wisdom about when to reopen our roads? Things like this shouldn’t be left for local people to decide- we might make the “un-California” choice. Big “mahalo” for your letter!
Aloha Kakou, and Aloha Gary,
People that are rude to visitors or Xenophobic of them, or just plain ignorant of the economic interactions of the visitor industry…are either on welfare or have never traveled and experienced the world “outside their back yard” and interacted with people on another island much less a far continent.
Perhaps they are unaware that sugar is gone, while its departure has been a wound to the economy, it’ a healing for the island.
“Please forgive them…for they know not what they” speak. Like for instance…if we do not have the road open in a few days, specifically May 1, Kauai or is it all of Hawaii nei loses $80,000,000.00 in Federal Highway FUNDS. Now if that does not put an itch in your brain to open the road, you may be a little too lolo, or inhaling too much of same.
Heh, so no whining ‘bout the roads, eh?
The Kauai and worldwide visitor industry serves a few purposes, so if we think outside the box, well…outside our shoreline, the visitor industry fills airplanes with happy (some soon to be intoxicated) wishfullfilling explorers with mindsets not unlike Columbus, Capt. Cook, Admiral Byrd, Roald Amundsen, Marco Polo, Lewis and Clark, Amelia Earhart, Ms. Sacagawea, Ferdinand Magellan, Amerigo Vespucci, Vasco de Gama, Francisco Pizzaro, Leif Erikson, Ibn Buttata, Edmund Hillary, Jaques Cousteau, Abel Tasman, George Vancouver, Sir Francis Drake, Juan Cabrillo, and all the religion expansionist missionaries, the likes of some of which have left their “mark” on Hawaii, but also worldwide Hinduism (7,000 BCE), Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism, Judaism, and let’s not forget their polar thinking counterparts…spreading Communism, Socialism, Feudalism, and let’s never forget the reasonably unwelcome visitor explorer conquerors like Genghis and sons, and then those who proceeded us all, those pesky forbears of all…Australopithecus, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnum,
Floriensis, and recently discovered the Philippine Luzonensis people dating back some speck of earth time from 70,000 to 700,000 years ago.
And let’s not forget the drive in many of us to explore and see new things, experience other cultures and the varied wonders of nature…whether it be the next wave outside Hanalei or the next mile up the Waimea Valley. This drive was transferred to us from our parents, and our ancestors, whether they had the opportunity to travel or not…this drive is innate, inborn in us…in fact not only early man, the hominids, some mentioned above, but the much earlier vertebrates as far as science and history knows of…whether they fly or float or are or were on foot…and let’s not forget the ancient and modern traveling virus and bacteria we are so ignorantly worried about, they have a life here too and travel is an inherent part of it…of life.
The history of Hawaii includes seeds of plants and trees that traveled here intercontinental by hitchhiking on the wings and in the stomachs of birds…apparently coconuts made their own way.
You see back then there were no fences and visas, there were waters to cross like rivers and straits and channels, and oceans…but human kind prevailed and here we are today in Paradise. Who do we ultimately thank…the Marquesans and eventually the Tahitians (And before them the Samoans)? …and the Marquesans found the Wailua River almost 3,000 miles from their home with nary a stop off in between…good job “Marque”.
Have we had enough of travelers, explorers, not to mention trade, economy, financial sustainability, cultural interchange, old traders of spice, Ocean harvests, ideas, technology, Blind Faith in new Concepts, apparently not…you see, Gary, we on Kauai as a tiny island economy need your innate drive to travel, to explore, to meet new people, enjoy the dynamic and static creations of our mutual creator from sunrise to sunset in the valleys, on the mountains, along the rivers and beaches, riding the waves, enjoying the frutas do mar, and even a little chicken adobo, and we hope you and others continue to come…and who could not need a little more Aloha, like some of these commenters. Shame…auwe…! ! !
On another serious note if that above is not serious enough. The one thing the world visitor industry, including especially ours, does mean…it means that for every plane filled with visitors going anywhere in the world, it means that plane with travelers is not carrying soldiers going to war. The visitor industry is a newish large industry that has gratefully replaced war soldier transportation by plane or ships. We can remember having to go to Oahu during the Vietnam (American) War and seeing young soldiers packed into busses all suited up for war on their way to Oahu’s military airport, Hickman. So many looked like they had no clue about themselves and where they were headed with rifle, helmet, and canteen…1 to destroy life..and 2 to save self…”THOU SHALT NOT KILL”…2 Million Vietnamese civilians 10,000 miles from Washington, D.C.; can we get a psychologist or poetic lysergery in this opera.
They were teenage kids headed into combat to fight for our country over 10,000 miles from our nation’s capital, but when they entered into combat they were really fighting for their own lives…very frightfully seriously…perhaps looking back…foolishly.
Better we welcome our visitors, and open the road, and accept the much needed $80,000,000.00 million dollars for whatever David will spend it on.
As long as there is Life there will be Traveling.
Our Creator made it that way…! Travel and Visitors are an Alternative to War.
When Greeting and Serving a Visitor you might as well add ALOHA.
E Komo Mai,
Charles