12-10-2015, 10:27 AM
If you read the various letters and editorials on Tiffany's blog the writers all seem to think that Railroad being opened will solve all their traffic woes related to this detour. According to various media reports they have been very vocal in pressuring the politicians to open RR and are framing it as the solution to all lower Puna traffic issues. Thus the "magic bullet" reference.
In all fairness Rob, HPP does not have any single idea of itself, not with over 14000 people living there, much less thinking of ourselves as an island. But people who are already paying both highway taxes and mandatory road fees are understandably unhappy when others decide to promote the idea of driving on the privately owned and maintained roads that every lot owner here pays $350 a year for as the first solution to traffic issues, but never with an offer to pay for the wear and tear they will cause.
If people want to use HPP roads as their alternative commuter route they need to lean on the county to take over the ownership of those roads. The county initially came to HPP with all sorts of promises on how they were going to hold HPP harmless when Railroad became the only way in and out of lower Puna due to lava, then when RR was done they backed off on all those promises, in part because the HPPOA board is so useless the county knew they could get away with it.
If people want a real solution to Puna traffic issues they should be pushing for Railroad to go all the way to Hilo as a PMAR, not just default to using HPP roads as a free set of roads to make their commute a little bit shorter during some road construction.