By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

When the city solicited opinions for improving Waikiki transportation last month, there was no shortage of ideas, big and small.

The occasion was a workshop to discuss "visions" for the main roads in the area that mixes tourists and residents like no other place in Hawai'i. Several hundred people attended the six-hour event, and, boy, did they have suggestions:

Build a tunnel. Build a bridge. Get rid of cars. Get rid of tour buses.

"Anything goes," the facilitator said at the start of a session discussing Kuhio Avenue, the Waikiki artery that best embodies the clash of differing needs in the neighborhood. "Think big."

So, naturally, the first suggestion was something so small it seemed obvious: more water fountains. If you want to make Kuhio more pedestrian friendly, put in more water fountains, one woman suggested.

They were off and running.

Bigger sidewalks! No, a whole walkway! Better yet, turn the whole street into a pedestrian mall!

Wait, said a tour bus representative. You can't forget the tourists. They need to get in and out, too. You don't want them all driving their own rental cars, do you?

Back and forth it went for more than an hour and a half.

Dozens of people offered their thoughts on what Kuhio is now and what it could be in the future.

Is it a residential street? "I love living and walking there," one participant said.

Is it a commercial thoroughfare? "It's so cold and concrete and impersonal," someone else countered.

Maybe it's a little of both. Or maybe it's something on one end and something else on the other.

Should we make it easier for people to walk around. or make it easier for the beer trucks to make their deliveries? Should we create more parking areas, or should we convert existing parking areas into staging grounds for buses?

It was the city's planning process at work. Democratic. Populist. Sometimes a little raucous. Sometimes a little silly.

"Why can't we build a tunnel for all the buses to use?" someone asked. "If they can build a tunnel under the English channel, they can build one under Kuhio."

In the end, challenges and compromises were the order of the day, as they often are when planning and politics mix. All the participants agreed that ultimately, the tour buses and delivery trucks would have to get along with the walkers and the bicyclists and there are ways to make Kuhio better for all.

So someone suggested that one of Kuhio's five lanes be reclaimed from traffic, using it to widen sidewalks in some areas and create tour bus bays in others, with more landscaping in between.

And maybe that's what will happen. Or maybe it will be something else entirely. The city says it will take all the suggestions, put them into a big report, ask for more feedback and see what the public really wants and then what the City Council really will pay for.

Mike Leidemann's Drive Time column runs Tuesdays. Reach him at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.