Pahia Road Crosswalk is a death trap.

Planning for a better Hawaii

Hosted by the Hawaii Bicycle League, community leaders met to discuss how we can make the Pahia Street Cross Walk on Kamehameha Hwy in Kaneohe safer. Hardly a day goes by that there is not a close call in this cross walk. Traffic commonly travels at 10-15 miles/hour over the speed limit and many drivers ignore pedestrians in the cross walk.

Particularly dangerous is when a driver stops in one lane and the driver in the next lane rushes through the crosswalk. When a pedestrian assumes a car will stop, tragedy results.

Community members, legislators and employees of Dept. of Health, Dept. of Transportation and others from County and State gathered to consider what can be done to make this crossing safer. I ideas ranged from better lighting and signage, to enforcement of cross walk regulations to better lighting and the holistic approach of redesigning Kamehameha Hwy to make it safe for cars, bikes and pedestrians.

Planned major maintenance of Kamehameha Hwy from Hygenic Store in Kahaluu to the Like Like Hwy provides us a unique opportunity to apply Complete Street Concepts to this main artery through Kaneohe to make it a safer and move community friendly road.

The Blue Zones Project follows through with a meeting on Thursday, May 26, to discuss the built environment of Kaneohe. Community leaders will be discussing how we can make Kaneohe a safer, more community oriented place to live. The meeting will be held at the Pohai Nani Good Samaritan Auditorium from 11am-1pm and again in the evening starting at 6:30 pm. The evening meeting is for more general public discussion. The lunch meeting will be focused on planning and picking one major demonstration project we can accomplish in the next few years.

If you want to share your ideas, come to either or both meetings. To impact the long term planning to create an even better Kaneohe, come the the lunch meeting where we will be doing in-depth planning.