Online geek hits the road for you
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
The world's foremost authority on Hawai'i highways might just be an antitrust attorney who lives in Virginia and, until three years ago, had never driven here.
“One minor disappointment in the making of this site — there’s not ONE highway named for Don Ho. Just a crummy ‘street’ in Waikiki (really just a private service road for the Royal Hawaiian complex, where he used to perform — his shows are now at the Waik&Mac246;k&Mac246; Beachcomber), only about 500 feet long and not even shown on many Honolulu street maps. Many pork-barreling Mainland politicians, who can’t even sing “Tiny Bubbles” to save their lives, have one or even two freeways named for them. But does Don Ho get a freeway? Nooo! “Auwe “As it happens, there are three freeways on Oahu (Interstates H-2 and H-3, and Interstate H-1 west of exit 19), that are unnamed (which is most un-Hawaiian), and indeed are just about the only highways in the state commonly referred to by route number rather than by name. So there’s room not only for a Don Ho Freeway, but also one named for the late Jack Lord (or his ‘Hawai‘i 5-0’ character Steve McGarrett), to honor their respective roles in popularizing Hawai‘i on the Mainland, and a ‘Your Name Here’ Freeway to which Hawai‘i DOT perhaps could sell the naming rights.”
Oscar Voss insists he is just an "enthusiastic amateur," but the Web site he maintains on the state of the state's roads is cram-filled with facts, opinions and trivia about everything from Highway 11 (Hawai'i Belt Highway) to Highway 99 (Farrington Highway).
What? There’s no Don Ho Highway?
A brief excerpt from Oscar Voss’ Hawai‘i highways Web site, which can be found at www.hawaiihighways.com or at users.erols.com/ovoss/hawaii_index.htm:
Spend a few moments on the site and you can learn the little-known story of Oahu's Interstate H-201, why you can't do a full-circle drive around Kaua'i, why rental-car companies really hate the Saddle Road on the Big Island ("probably the only paved state highway in the U.S. off-limits to most rental cars!"), and the infamous and politically incorrect "The Genie and the Road" joke.
You can also find out how Hawai'i's road-numbering system works, discover where the Admiral Clarey Bridge is, receive a warning about how long it takes to navigate the Round Top/Tantalus drive, and see dozens of photos of local road signs ranging from rusting old county standards on Maui to the hulking electronic marvels above the H-3.
"Basically, I fell into doing a Hawai'i highways site more or less by accident," said Voss, a self-described "road geek" before setting out on a driving vacation on the Mainland last week.
Growing up in California, he enjoyed reading road atlases, even before he got his first driver's license. As a teenager in the 1970s, he closely followed the development of the interstate freeway system and might have become a road engineer himself "if I had more tolerance for calculus."
Instead, Voss went to law school and ended up as anti-trust attorney for the Federal Trade Commission specializing in healthcare mergers and acquisitions.
Meanwhile, he kept his highway interest alive by participating in a Usenet discussion group (misc.transport.road) where he became familiar with the work of C.C. Slater, who had developed an extensive network of Internet sites covering roads throughout the United States and the Caribbean.
A couple of years ago, when Slater had to give up his work for personal reasons, Voss volunteered to take over the Hawai'i site in part because "it would give me an excuse to make it out to Hawai'i, at that time the only one of the 50 states I hadn't visited."
Since 1999, Voss has been out to Hawai'i three times to do field research, which includes driving on "every mile of numbered state highway system and of the numbered county highways, and almost all the significant unnumbered highways" as well as visiting local experts in the state and county transportation offices.
Voss organizes his Hawai'i Web site into four sections: route lists (including all the numbered state highways); exit guides (which list all the exit points from O'ahu's freeways); road photos; and frequently asked questions, where far-flung readers can get Voss' sometimes quirky takes on such issues as the shaka sign, the local speed limits, the price of gas, and the supposed H-3 curse.
On his super road geek Internet page, Voss brags that he has driven on every mainline (two-digit numbered) interstate, except three little-known unsigned ones in Puerto Rico, and been on more than 85 percent of the interstate loop and spur routes (three-digit routes).
He has driven the highest road in America (Colorado State Route 5, at 14,160 feet) and the lowest one (Badwater Road in Death Valley, at minus 270 feet).
He has also driven on the most western, eastern, northern and southern roads in the nation, the last one being along the Big Island's South Point, and he has taken five coast-to-coast driving trips since 1986.
Before leaving on his most recent road trip last week, Voss already was planning his next visit to Hawai'i, tentatively scheduled for spring.
"I'm looking forward to trudging up to the 'Stairway to Heaven' trail above the Ha'iku Valley when it reopens, with what seem to be fantastic views above the curvaceous H-3 Freeway," he said.
