Posted on: Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Editorial
Emergency road for Wai'anae long overdue

It is good news for the residents of Wai'anae and for everyone who travels to or from the area that the city is moving quickly on a proposed emergency route into and out of the Leeward Coast.

Given the speed with which this project has taken shape, one wonders why it took so long to get it started.

Wai'anae residents for years have been frustrated and frightened by the fact that there is only one realistic way into and out of the Leeward Coast — Farrington Highway.

When a traffic accident, police incident or natural disaster blocks the highway, people are trapped. Under ordinary conditions, this can be extremely frustrating for people trying to get home or to work. But under conditions of a natural disaster — say a tsunami — it could be absolutely frightening.

With prospects for a major mauka highway almost nil, the fallback idea was a patchwork linkage of suburban streets and back roads that would at least provide a second way out.

The Harris administration says it has about $5 million to get started on what would eventually be a $40 million to $50 million project. Since the project will have to be completed in stages, the city is commendably working with local residents to determine which portions should be built first.

Even a partial network of emergency roads would be valuable.

If this were simply a matter of convenience or of easing traffic flow, the project could wait its turn among many important city roadwork projects.

But it is more than that: It is a public safety issue of the first magnitude. Perhaps the city can win extra funding from the federal government through agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

After all, the money spent on the roadwork will be a pittance compared to the costs that we all will face if people are trapped along the coastline in a major emergency.