Decision on rumble strips postponed by Nu'uanu board

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Residents call them grumble strips, noisy bumps in the road that keep them awake all night long. The state says they appear to be helping to slow traffic on a dangerous stretch of highway flowing through a residential neighborhood.

After hearing testimony from both sides last night, the Nu'uanu Neighborhood Board postponed a decision on whether the 3-month-old rumble strips along the Pali Highway should be removed.

Instead, the board formed an emergency task force of residents, board members and state engineers to recommend a course of action that could include removal, noise mitigation or alternatives like cutting grooves into the road.

The task force hopes to have a proposal ready within a few weeks.

Board members decided last night not to visit a street where residents say the constant thump-thump-thump of cars passing over the rumble strips has ruined their formerly peaceful lives.

The board failed to pass a motion calling for removal of the strips. Two board members voted in favor of removal, one voted against and six abstained.

"That's the poorest comment on democracy I've ever seen," said Erik Soderholm, one of the Ala Kimo Drive residents who pleaded with the board for relief. "They're all just lily-livered. At least they could have taken a stand either way."

However, board members said they wanted more information about the effectiveness of the rumble strips and possible alternatives before making a decision.

State Transportation Director Rod Haraga told the board that the rumble strips, in combination with other measures the state has taken, appear to be slowing traffic. Surveys taken before and after the rumble strips were put in showed that average speeds on the highway declined by 5-6 mph, he said.

Still, the department would remove the strips if that's what the community wants, Haraga said.

"You decide and tell us what you want, and we'll try to help," he said.

Residents of Ala Kimo Drive and one from as far away as Pacific Heights insisted that the rumble strips should be removed.

"The rumble strips don't work. They created more heartache than help," said Ellen Osborne, a resident of Ala Kimo Drive. "You come and spend one night in my house, and you'll agree. It's clear the state never even considered noise when they were making its plans."

Board members said they were sympathetic, but have to worry about the safety of the larger community, too.

"Some of us are trying to look at the bigger picture here," board member Audrey Hidano said.

The rumble strips were installed near Wyllie and Waokanaka streets as part of a program to slow traffic through the 1.3-mile stretch of highway, where more than a half-dozen people have been killed and hundreds injured in the past 10 years.

"I don't think anyone in the community or at DOT realized how much noise would be generated and how it would affect the community," said Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, D-13th (Kalihi, Nu'uanu). "Maybe it's possible to remove the rumble strips and implement more of the things that do work, like putting in more of those speed indicator signs."

Others suggested that the state find an alternative way of alerting drivers that they are approaching a residential area.

Rumble strips cut into the roadway, rather than raised above it, and grooving cut into the side of the road might achieve the same effect without as much noise, said Westle Chun, a member of the original Nu'uanu task force that proposed a "holistic" traffic calming approach to the problem.