02-27-2012, 10:27 AM
The speed limits feel ridiculous when you or I are on the highway and judging by the road conditions. However, there are hundreds of driveways and feeder streets bringing communities and individual parcels into the stream of traffic, and there is too much traffic for safe egress if people are driving highway speeds.
As an FYI north of Hilo that was mentioned -- due to the horrific and frequent accidents at the intersections of Pinky's/Baker Tom's and the Papa'ikou side of the Onomea Scenic Route (by the elementary school) -- that zone is going down to 35 mph. The people of the area have begged for a traffic light (or two) and have been rejected in the interest of keeping the traffic flow going uninterrupted on Hwy 19.
So please kokua and drive slow on that stretch. The changes were initiated by Rep. Mark Nakashima in response to lots of citizen input at public meetings.
Now as a driver, with no other considerations of cross traffic, I would prefer to go 55-65 along there, but then no one could get out of their homes and get to town, so there it is, it's all about seeing the big picture.
If the Papa'ikou example seems too far removed, there are plenty of parallels on 130 and 11, the difficulty in getting out of HPP and Orchidland certainly comes to mind.
As an FYI north of Hilo that was mentioned -- due to the horrific and frequent accidents at the intersections of Pinky's/Baker Tom's and the Papa'ikou side of the Onomea Scenic Route (by the elementary school) -- that zone is going down to 35 mph. The people of the area have begged for a traffic light (or two) and have been rejected in the interest of keeping the traffic flow going uninterrupted on Hwy 19.
So please kokua and drive slow on that stretch. The changes were initiated by Rep. Mark Nakashima in response to lots of citizen input at public meetings.
Now as a driver, with no other considerations of cross traffic, I would prefer to go 55-65 along there, but then no one could get out of their homes and get to town, so there it is, it's all about seeing the big picture.
If the Papa'ikou example seems too far removed, there are plenty of parallels on 130 and 11, the difficulty in getting out of HPP and Orchidland certainly comes to mind.