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What used to be a 10 minute drive now takes nearly an hour.
The wonderful Development Plan that calls for "commercial centers" also creates "traffic centers". Film at 11.
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quote:
Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge
opening RR to Maku'u will just move the current Kahakai traffic jam down the road 3.75 miles ...and add it to another traffic nightmare.
Wouldn't the total amount of traffic on Highway 130 after Shower Drive be the same whether drivers used Highway 130 from lower Puna, or Railroad? If some of the drivers used Railroad, there would be that much less traffic on Hwy 130 between Pahoa and Shower Drive, making it easier to enter the highway at Maku'u, Paradise, Kaloli, and Shower.
It would be the same number of cars, entering the highway at multiple locations.
The issue is getting out of HPP, once on the highway at Shower it is smooth sailing until the outskirts of Hilo when the highway turns back into a parking lot.
Cars join the line of traffic on Shower from multiple numbered streets, so one car moves forward and one new car moves into the line of cars, this repeats at each street between 22nd and 28th, with cars backed up on those side streets and all the way down Shower. No one I know who lives in HPP tries to turn onto the highway from HPP anywhere other than Shower in the morning, it has the only designated lane for turning onto from HPP, and it is virtually impossible to get on the highway from the other main roads. One left turning car from Shower can stop all movement onto the highway for as long as 15 minutes while they wait for a break in traffic so they can turn.
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quote:
Originally posted by kalakoa
The people who think opening that road up will be some sort of solution are dreaming, it will just move one traffic nightmare down the road and add it to another traffic nightmare.
For me, that would be exactly the point: with a clearly demonstrated "we did everything we could, it didn't help", it might just barely be possible to start the larger discussion about the inadequacy of "one road in, one road out".
Keaau-Pahoa widening project includes at least two more roundabouts, so we'll be doing this again and again over the coming decade(s), and with the additional traffic from population growth, it will only be worse Next Time.
Unless the Shipman family decide to allow a PMAR through their land we will continue to have 1 road in and out of what is still the fastest growing district in the state. Just goes to show that the plantation system of a handful of wealthy families having veto power over any changes is still alive and well.
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One left turning car from Shower can stop all movement onto the highway for as long as 15 minutes while they wait for a break in traffic so they can turn.... this repeats at each street between 22nd and 28th, with cars backed up on those side streets and all the way down Shower.
If most of the cars attempting to turn left on Hwy 130 are driving to Pahoa, and an alternate route were available, for instance Railroad Ave, many of those drivers would choose to take the slightly longer but less time consuming road, one that didn't involve waiting for 15 minutes at the highway to turn left.
The backup between 22nd and 28th would then be greatly reduced as commuters from HPP not driving to Pahoa would mostly make a right hand turn on to Hwy 130.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Wouldn't it be nice if all of those that commute to work just used public transport? Provided the Emperor could stay away from those 400 dollar beers in Honolulu, and spend more time thinking. We are growing exponentially, wouldn't a good, clean, professional bus service make life easier? How many cars would an excellent public transport system take off the road? Besides, cheap gas will not last forever.
jdo
jdo
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quote:
Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge
One left turning car from Shower can stop all movement onto the highway for as long as 15 minutes while they wait for a break in traffic so they can turn.... this repeats at each street between 22nd and 28th, with cars backed up on those side streets and all the way down Shower.
If most of the cars attempting to turn left on Hwy 130 are driving to Pahoa, and an alternate route were available, for instance Railroad Ave, many of those drivers would choose to take the slightly longer but less time consuming road, one that didn't involve waiting for 15 minutes at the highway to turn left.
The backup between 22nd and 28th would then be greatly reduced as commuters from HPP not driving to Pahoa would mostly make a right hand turn on to Hwy 130.
Almost no one commutes to Pahoa from the Shower side of HPP in the morning, people on the Maku'u side drive their kids to Pahoa schools, but most of the left turners at Shower (thank the gods there are not many of them!) are mostly headed to Ainaloa and the 8 road route up the mountain. I chose to take the earliest possible AM shift at my work, because I prefer not to spend 15-20 minutes waiting to turn off Shower every morning, but I end up having to go in later often enough to have a pretty good handle on how the traffic works.
Opening Railroad will NOT be a magic bullet for all the lower Puna/Hilo commuters if all it does is dump them off in HPP. A PMAR should have been agreed upon and designated years ago, then all the money that went into making Railroad into an "emergency route only" road could have been invested in a more permanent solution. The agreement the county made with HPP was RR would only be used in an emergency, so when a wind storm blocked off Kahakai they opened it, but it is not designed to be a "detour" for non emergencies. I think the people pushing for RR to be opened never drove it, I would far rather wait for my turn at a light than drive that slow dusty gravel road, especially after it has been used for a few months.
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You know, opening up Railroad has just a much potential to serve HPP residents as not. There's a lot of people in HPP. They don't all move about as a herd. Getting some traffic would likely be an incentive to getting the county to finally take responsibility for something. Force them to deal with it. Traffic has been dumping through HPP off of 130 for years and years.
And who suggested Railroad would be a "magic bullet"? HPP needs to accept the fact that they are part of the district and not an island of their own.
Assume the best and ask questions.
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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.
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"Getting some traffic would likely be an incentive to getting the county to finally take responsibility for something." Please tell us how that would work to help us in HPP. We have neither the leadership nor the legal resources to force such an issue. Nothing short of a monumental court decision would force the county to let go of the status quo, as Rob Tucker himself told us some time ago when he indicated that a class action lawsuit over the substandard subdivision issue was in the works. Whatever happened to that?
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As far as I know. No one has approached HPPOA about opening RR.
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