• Longer contraflow hours should help • More, wider roads is the answer Longer contraflow hours should help Mahalo to Mr. Jacobs for his letter (TGI, Jan 7). As a taxi driver, I’m on the road and in this traffic every day.
• Longer contraflow hours should help • More, wider roads is the answer
Longer contraflow hours should help
Mahalo to Mr. Jacobs for his letter (TGI, Jan 7).
As a taxi driver, I’m on the road and in this traffic every day. It has always been my thoughts to keep the contraflow up longer because 95 percent of the vehicles heading south at that time are going to Lihue.
On the other hand, vehicles heading north are going various places and can disperse and have more options and not all are going all the way through Kapaa.
The build up of traffic heading north is two-thirds less than what is heading south at the crunch time of 11 a.m. to 1 pm.
There was a mention in TGI by the mayor saying they tried it at some point in time. I would like to know when that was because I don’t ever recall that day.
What I vividly remember was the day a truck heading north over the newly completed Wailua Bridge spilled a bunch of white paint. The contraflow was forced to stay up until about 1 p.m. while they cleaned the paint spill. And both sides were flowing freely. The incident of that day proved that extended contraflow would vastly help our current situation with the Kapaa traffic corridor or crawl.
I heard that the problem lies within the union of the six men that put up and break down the cones. If this is the case, pay them what they want to get the job done. I welcome all criticisms and comments if I am not 100 percent right.
Janice Smolenski, North Shore Cab Co.
More, wider roads is the answer
In an excellent poll taken by TGI (Jan. 27) asking “What should be done to improve traffic flow on Kauai,” 85 percent of those polled said, “Build more roads and add lanes by widening roads” over “Create more paths for bikes, walking so people will drive less.”
For many years, a group of us have been fighting to get the former suggestion to become a reality, but an opposing faction who live in a dream world continue to insist that more bikes, buses, walking paths and shuttles is the answer.
What this “dream world” group refuses to accept is that our vehicles (cars or trucks) are here to stay and no other means of transportation is going to take its place.
We add more bike lanes along our roads which narrows (not widens!) them and that only increases our traffic problems. And what federal, state or local agency decides that we need to narrow our roads with bike lanes that maybe 1 percent of the commuting public will never use. And if they use them, it will be for recreation and not transportation.
As for buses, we taxpayers are subsidizing them to the amount of $8 million a year and they are not doing anything to lessen traffic. We gave free ridership to 1,500 of our county employees for 30 days. Even then, less than 1 percent ever took advantage of this offer.
We tried a shuttle system on the North Shore and it was also a disaster since there was not enough ridership and only our tax dollars could keep it going — just another example of people refusing to abandon their vehicles.
One only needs to think about the practicality of using their vehicles over any other means of transportation — it is a no-brainer. Having your own vehicle gives you the freedom of coming and going when and where you please and that is not going to change.
Thank you to TGI for taking these polls. Our elected officials need to see them and abide by what the majority or their constituents need and want.
Joe Rosa, Lihue
