Interesting observation re: 130 improvements

[kalakoa]

HAAS is not actually located on highway 130...

HAAS traffic enhances dangerous congestion at the intersection. Perhaps not a "school zone", but something really should be done about the problem. (ha, ha)

[lavalava]

This school is not located on 130 it is located on Opukahaia Street. What a joke.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Now that the Hwy 130 construction is almost complete, I've noticed traffic backup at the new merge is almost non-existent. Even on Monday when it rained, which usually creates a long delay, the merge only took a minute or two. Has anyone noticed a serious delay in the past week or two?

I thought the wait time at the new merge would be similar to the old merge, but as someone suggested a few months ago, the stoplight at the high school seems to have been the real cause of the problem all along. I'd like to hear what others think, but if the backup had been due to the stoplight, the traffic we've been sitting in all these years could have been eliminated just by switching the stoplight at the Pahoa side of the high school to green for 3 hours every afternoon from 3-6 PM (and blocking traffic from entering the highway there).

What do you think?

[shockwave rider]

Initially it just moved the problem down the road, but they extended the merge lines farther back and also closer to the Shower turn lane and while things get a little crazy right around Shower it actually is much better.

[ironyak]

Agreed that the new merge is working much better - it seems to me that it's related to having enough time at a steady speed for the cars to spread out more. When the lanes reduce there is space between them to actually merge at near the speed limit.

Given there are no side streets in this stretch there are the same number of cars, but much better traffic now. (Don't tell DOT or they might not start phase 2 for another decade)

[TomK]

I agree with Ironyak. To me, the stop lights were never the problem as they had little to do with the amount of traffic being forced into one lane. A couple of months ago the merge was moved a mile or so south of the old bottleneck and we still saw huge backups although rarely as far as back to the stop lights, so in my mind this ultimately ruled out the lights as the problem.

Now the merge has moved up to the turn-off for Shower and there are hardly any backups. I suspect this is because enough traffic is turning left at Shower to make the merge smoother and easier (especially for those less skilled in merging). However, I still suspect there will be the odd backup when one idiot ruins it for everyone else. You only need one piece of bad driving to cause problems for hours.

Definitely much better than it used to be though!

[Punatic007]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge

Now that the Hwy 130 construction is almost complete, I've noticed traffic backup at the new merge is almost non-existent. Even on Monday when it rained, which usually creates a long delay, the merge only took a minute or two. Has anyone noticed a serious delay in the past week or two?

I thought the wait time at the new merge would be similar to the old merge, but as someone suggested a few months ago, the stoplight at the high school seems to have been the real cause of the problem all along. I'd like to hear what others think, but if the backup had been due to the stoplight, the traffic we've been sitting in all these years could have been eliminated just by switching the stoplight at the Pahoa side of the high school to green for 3 hours every afternoon from 3-6 PM (and blocking traffic from entering the highway there).

What do you think?

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A friend who oversees emergency responses on the island, suggested for many years to close the road coming from Keaau town during rush hour, only 130 active at that light. Same theory different strategy.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Don't tell DOT or they might not start phase 2

Mums the word. Even worse, they might decide to start Phase II with a stoplight at Shower and no extra turn lanes, then pause the project (again) right there. That could take us back to where we started with mile long backups. Over on Oahu the DOT officials would adjust their Aeron chairs, and lean back for a good look at streaming video from our new highway cams.

"Who says we don't give Honolulu style roadways to Puna. They've got multiple lanes with a value added rush hour experience."