What to do about the need for speed? ADVERTISING What to do about the need for speed? As cars tear up and down residential streets and along roadways in Kona, those who live closest to the lead-footed driving are increasingly
What to do about the need for speed?
As cars tear up and down residential streets and along roadways in Kona, those who live closest to the lead-footed driving are increasingly calling on the county to erect speed humps to rein drivers in. Yet there doesn’t seem to be agreement on whether the devices are the right answer — or even work.
On Nani Kailua Drive on Thursday, a sign placed along the street advertised an upcoming community meeting on a plan to place nine speed humps on the steep stretch of roadway. Fifty-four out of 62 property owners along the drive recently petitioned for the county to install the traffic calming devises. Now, the county is taking a second look following outcry from other residents in the area who say the humps will divert speeders down adjacent streets and increase traffic on Aloha Kona Drive and Hoene Street.
The humps wear out brakes and suspension and don’t really change driver behavior, some resident say.
But Nani Kailua resident Eva Davis sat in the shade near her front door Thursday and recounted how two teenagers drag raced downhill in front of her house a couple of years ago. One of them lost control and left a long trail of blue paint along her rock wall, and caused $4,000 in property damage. The subdivision, like most, has a speed limit of 25 mph.
“We definitely need the speed humps. It’s unbelievable the speeders here,” her husband Harvey Davis said.
Mike Halstad, who lives just up the street, estimated that it’s typical to see drivers doing 40 mph downhill in front of his house. He supported the plan for speed humps but worried about increased acceleration and deceleration noise of uphill traffic negotiating the humps — particularly trucks headed to mauka construction sites.
“The people going down are sometimes going so fast,” he said.
But one resident near the bottom of the drive said he didn’t see the need for new measures on Nani Kailua.
“You can argue the speed thing anywhere in town,” he said.
Royal Poinciana Drive resident Harvey Kanuha has watched traffic go by his door for 40 years. Speed humps were installed all along the roadway over a decade ago to curb drivers who sometimes hit 80 mph on a street with an elementary school. But they didn’t turn out to be the panacea many had hoped for.
“We got guys that fly through here and even if there are bumps they’ll go fast anyway,” said Kanuha, an uncle of Kona Councilman Dru Kanuha. “It’s an off-road contest. And you got the people who hate the bumps and they’ll blast their horns every time they go over one just to irritate us.”
“You hear people hitting bottom,” said Kanuha, who worked for three decades as a taxi driver in Kailua-Kona. “I don’t think it’s helped. I’d rather see stop signs.”
But Ken Obenski, chairman of the Kona Traffic Safety Committee, stresses that the older, sharper humps like those along Poinciana differ from the new devises installed on Laaloa and proposed for Nani Kailua.
Wider and with a flat surface, the new humps don’t require a driver to slow down to 10 to 15 miles an hour. Instead, cars and emergency vehicles — so long as they’re not traveling over 25 mph — can pass over comfortably, he said.
The speed humps on Poinciana are counterproductive, Obenski said.
“Drivers slow down and immediately accelerate, which is noisy, or they just fly over them,” he said.
Some residents point to wide, smooth streets built to modern standards — like the new Laaloa Avenue extension — and believe speed limits should be higher. Obenski said its clear that limits are too low islandwide and the Police Department doesn’t have enough officers to tackle the speed problems on Kona’s roads.
“It’s too hard for police to enforce it when everyone’s in violation,” he said.
The Hawaii Police Department recently found that 86 percent of uphill drivers on Laaloa were traveling 36 mph — 11 mph over the limit. Police say they have stepped up enforcement on Laaloa, but they also acknowledge that speed problems are widespread and not limited to the streets cited in this article.
The county is planning on adding more humps to Laaloa based on Police Department data and accounts from residents, Public Works Director Warren Lee said.
It’s less clear what will happen on Nani Kailua.
“The recommendation is on my desk. I am reviewing it, and the comments in opposition to the speed humps,” Lee said. “It’s an ongoing process.”
North Kona Councilwoman Karen Eoff has fielded calls and emails from both sides of the issue and said the county is listening to all concerns.
“No one’s voice is going unheard,” she said.
