Hwy 130 speed limit drop

[terracore]

They can lower the speed limit to 20 for all I care. I'll still drive 60 the whole way and make dangerous passes around those who attempt to slow me down. It's not like the cops are hard to spot.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

quote:

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Originally posted by hotinhawaii

lowering a speed limit by 10 mph would decrease accidents but it's not necessarily the case. Here is the DOT's own study on this: http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

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I've read through the report cited, here are a few things I noted:
1) It is a single 21 year old study
2) The information on the page linked is extracted from the full 84 page DOT study by a group called Reasonable Drivers Unanimous. You have to fill out a questionnaire to enter RDU's website, so I'm going to take a leap of faith that they could also be called Fast Drivers Unanimous
3) Even the one page they chose to publish is inconclusive. For example, if the speed limit is lowered, the slowest drivers actually increase their speed by 1 mph. Which means, when all traffic moves at the rate of the slowest driver, lowering the speed limit actually increases your real time driving speed.

[rainshadow]

quote:

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Originally posted by terracore

They can lower the speed limit to 20 for all I care. I'll still drive 60 the whole way and make dangerous passes around those who attempt to slow me down. It's not like the cops are hard to spot.

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Trying to wrap around this... the point of your post is...???

-- rainshadow

[KeaauRich]

I'm not sure how I feel about this (although I do know that I resent Russell from pushing this without asking community input first).

I think many people's perspectives on the 55 vs 45 speed limit depend on how and where they enter the highway. If they join south of Pahoa, where volume is lighter and gaps between cars are greater, then a higher speed between Pahoa and Keaau may seem logical. But for those of us who have to join 130 from a side road between Pahoa and Keaau, the jury is still out.

Thanks to the Highway department's aversion to traffic lights and Hawaii's unique custom of giving the right of way to people turning left from 130 rather than people turning right off 130, subdivision residents risk our lives every time we head to Hilo. For those of us on the mauka side, morning rush hour means threading a needle to get through sporadic fast, unrestricted Pahoa-bound traffic so that we can zip into our small merge area and then wait for a traffic opening that allows us to go from zero MPH to 55 MPH almost instantaneously. Going to Hilo in the late afternoon means playing the human version of "Frogger" - looking for a break in the fast, congested Pahoa-bound traffic (while our vision is blocked by the right hand turners) while simultaneously keeping track of the potential for Hilo-bound left-turners off 130 who are vying for the same few traffic gaps that we are.

So will slower speed limits add to congestion and make my turns harder or will slower traffic mean I have a better shot at merging easily? Will they cause the Keaau bottleneck to be even more backed up in the evenings than it is now? Will police be able to enforce the new limit effectively, or will drivers flout the law and drive at a mix of fast and slow speeds that will make life even more confusing? These are the issues I wish had received a full review before Russell arbitrarily decided to push for lower limits.

[Bullwinkle]

social or traffic engineering - or a bit of both?

there will be some hard data collected - and may be an increase in revenue to boot - grin

see bag ban - just had to kick that sleeping dog on the way out ..... nice day out coffee all gone.........

[Chunkster]

Window dressing from Ruderman. This will be neither observed nor enforced consistently.

[hotinhawaii]

I was making the point that traffic study results can be counterintuitive. I said that the 10 mph change would not "necessarily" improve traffic safety and I cited one study to show this might be true. The real need here is for community input and expert guidance possibly in the form of a traffic study.

[Rob Tucker]

There have been several years of traffic studies and community input regarding Hwy. 130.

[jerry]

This is kind of like putting a band aid on cancer. I suspect that the result will be that traffic will be even more bunched up and it will be even more difficult to make a left turn from the Orchidland roads onto the highway in the AM and from HPP in the PM.

Why not put in a traffic light or two now? Because they would then then have to remove it in 2017/2020/20?? when the highway is widened? How much was spent reworking the traffic pattern at Ainaloa and Orchidland? How much will it cost to put in new speed limit signs?

Jerry
Art and Orchids B&B
http://www.artandorchids.com

[DickWilson]

With regards to Ruderman's latest stupidity, I can only repeat one of my favorite quotes. "politicians and diapers should be changed frequently and for the same reason."

dick wilson
"Nothing is idiot proof,because idiots are so ingenious!"