bad traffic jam from Keaau/Pahoa turnoff

[csgray]

Tom,
One of the traffic jams earlier this week did have sign wavers, in this case the three young ladies were waving signs and doing dance moves on the edge of the highway to sell laulau. They were absolutely impacting traffic negatively. The funny thing about that is when traffic gets jammed up like that very few people are willing to pull over to buy whatever is being sold.

Carol

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Here is why I don't think moving the bottleneck to Shower Dr will make much difference.

If there is a stop light at Shower Dr. just the fact that traffic intermittently comes to a complete halt there will create the same backup problems we now have. If it's true 3 sign wavers can slow things down, think about what a complete stop every 2 minutes will do.

If there is no stop light at Shower Dr, the left lane turning onto Shower Dr will back up while cars wait to turn left into Paradise Park due to oncoming traffic from Pahoa direction. Even if many HPP residents decide to turn here, they will have to wait, wait, wait, then travel down 28th street, where traffic will also back up at the stop signs at Kaloli, Paradise, and Maku'u. Some may fan out to other streets, but in the end, everyone will end up at a stop sign waiting to turn left. If the left turn lane on the highway at Shower Dr backs up too much due to these factors, drivers will choose to merge into the right lane, and we're back to the same bottleneck we now have.

As kalakoa points out, we're lucky they're moving the bottleneck to Shower Dr. When the extra lane is finally extended to Maku'u drive it will then make a huge difference in the traffic problem, so no sense complaining about it. In the long run, it will solve the problem.

[TomK]

Hi Carol,

Just so there's no misunderstanding, I too saw those sign wavers (and was annoyed when I saw them) and know that the presence of sign wavers there does cause backups. All I meant is that the extraordinary backups are now occurring even without them and I suspect it's because the road work is still going on when the heavy traffic starts and therefore creates the delays seen later on in the evening. Anyway, I'm still unsure why the road work can't be done at night, or at least that part of it which has the biggest effect on traffic flow.

[Frankie Stapleton]

FYI, on Thursday, 10/17, the delay started as early as 9:30 a.m. Traffic was backed up from the Humane Society to Paradise Drive, bumper to bumper and barely moving. There were 2 very young (i.e. inexperienced?) men directing traffic for the construction, actually it was Helco work w/the construction. And they had no clue the west-bound traffic was backing up so they were trying to be fair, letting the Pahoa-bound traffic (which was minimal) go the same amount of time that the stacked up Hilo-bound traffic had, making it even worse for the traffic moving toward Keaau. Anyone w/appointments was late. It took me 35 minutes to go 2 miles and I was in the early phase of the problem. When I tried going back toward Hilo later the same day, the construction work had moved across the road and caused that backup.

There was no one, cops, supervisors, no one to let these young men who controlled the stop-and-go what was happening three and four miles down the road. And from everything I could tell by observation (and I had plenny time for that!), these were Helco employees or contractors.

From now on, I plan to travel to Hilo at night or on Sundays from now on....

[kalakoa]

Looks like the Puna "development" plan (Drive To Hilo) isn't working out so well.

Also some irony: all the projects are happening at once, rather than build the shopping center first in hopes that it reduces the Hilo traffic flow a little...

[TomK]

For the first time I can remember I was overtaken today by someone on Hwy 130 actually doing it properly. I was driving through the construction zone from HPP to Keaau and had a guy in a large pick-up actually overtake on the left. I've been checking my right mirror more often recently for people overtaking on the shoulder but this guy did it correctly and in a place that allowed for passing. OK, he was driving about 30 mph over the limit but I'll live with that for now. Then he drove into the Keaau transfer station which I passed about ten seconds later. Good job, but was just wondering about all the things I could have got done in those ten seconds...

[ericlp]

So you were the one causing that traffic jam!!! Thanks Grandpa! Find the accelerator next time (hint) it's next to the break pedal.

J/K around of course.