Traffic heavy but moves smoothly

By James Gonser and Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writers

Morning traffic was heavy during this first day of the city bus strike with more people forced to find alternative transportation to work and school, but general cooperation and a “little luck” helped keep cars moving smoothly, according to Cheryl Soon, director of the city transportation department.

A man takes a ride today across a deserted Hotel Street, which is normally crowded and noisy with buses and commuters. The road, which is reserved for buses, went unused because of the strike that began today by O‘ahu’s city bus drivers. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

“Traffic is heavy, but it is not insurmountable,” Soon said this morning. “Things went very well during this morning’s peak hour. People heeded the call and acted accordingly. We couldn’t have asked for much more this morning.”

Soon stationed herself at the Honolulu Traffic Management Center, a bunker-like building near the H-1 Freeway, and said people left for work early and gave rides to others who normally ride the bus.

“I am pretty encouraged that people are taking our advice,” Soon said. “There seems to be a lot of car pooling going on. That is going to remain very important as long as the strike lasts.”

By 5:30 a.m. the city’s 135 traffic-monitoring cameras around the island began showing heavy traffic, but with just three minor traffic accidents and stalls everyone moved steadily toward downtown.

“We always have a problem if something big happens. Where we lose a major lane or two,” she said. “It didn’t happen so we got a little bit of luck on this one.”

Engineers generally say that for every minute a lane is blocked, cars will back up for 5 minutes. At peak travel times, the delay goes up to 20 minutes. One of the tasks of the three traffic monitors working out the management center is to spot accidents or stalls and quickly send police and tow trucks to clear up the situation.

“We were able to get them out of the way within 10 minutes,” Soon said. “The system works. We identified them early enough to get a tow truck to them and get them out of the way immediately. The cameras are doing exactly what they were set up to do.”

The state Department of Transportation opened the H-1 Freeway zipper lane from 5 a.m. until 9:15 a.m. for vehicles with two or more occupants. The lane normally shuts down at 8:30 a.m., and at least three occupants per vehicle are required from 5-7 a.m., and two required from 7-8:30 a.m.

The high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes along the H-1, H-2 and Moanalua freeways, and Kalaniana‘ole Highway are open to all vehicles, regardless of the number of occupants.

The city also restricted parking on all major roads into town and cancelled street construction permits for today to keep the streets as clear as possible.

“Anyone with a construction permit on the major street like King, Beretania, Ward, we pulled their permit and said they couldn’t work today,” Soon said. “We will assess if we will do the same thing tomorrow and the rest of the week.”

Most people appeared to make their own private arrangements for ridesharing, but there were some who had reserved an institutional alternative. Before 6 a.m., Barry Fukunaga, director of the Department of Enterprise Services, was posted with a city crew at the Kane‘ohe District Park, where about 65 people had signed up for the city’s regional van service.

Fukunaga wasn’t sure what kind of response to expect in the coming days.

“We’ll have to watch to see when there’s some kind of equilibrium, as people figure out their schedules,” he said. “For people riding this, time is of the essence because we take them downtown and then there are connections they have to catch.

“The first option most people would elect is to carpool and ride with a friend.”

There was a bit of a carnival atmosphere aboard one of the vans, which accommodated 14 riders. Most of them had booked their ride the day before, when media reports indicated the strike was imminent, and Ruth Kamiya had not yet worked up negative feelings about the situation.

“Not this morning, anyway!” she said with a smile. “We’re kind of excited about getting on this bus.”

A group aboard were employees at Morgan Stanley who had put their heads together and figured that the van option was their best recourse.

“It’s easier than catching a ride with someone else,” said Faith Nishimura.

The van pickup stations also were designated rendezvous points for anyone willing to offer rides to stranded commuters. This morning, Shirleen Deveas, a grounds supervisor at the University of Hawai‘i, found two UH students waiting for her at the district park.

“I work at the U, and I thought there are going to be kids needing a ride,” Deveas said.

Emily Borthwick, a sophomore, said her boyfriend’s mother alerted her to the van program.

“She was watching it on TV and she said, ‘Call them,’” Borthwick added.

Danielle Douglass, acknowledged the difficult timing of the strike.

“It’s kind of stressful, especially on the second day of school,” said the journalism senior.

City spokesman Doug Woo said the city is analyzing how effective the free van and ride share programs were and a press conference will be held this afternoon to discuss details.

By 8:30 a.m. the morning peak traffic was basically over.

“Nothing is going to replace the city bus system, but people have really done a great job in helping each other out,” Soon said. “People are known to behave this way in situations like hurricanes or blackouts, in a helping way and I think that is what we are experiencing here is a form of ohana and hopefully that will continue for as long as it needs to.”