Block an intersection, get a ticket, city warns

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

City traffic engineers feel that strike-challenged commuters are driving with aloha, but unless they start driving with more common sense, they're going to get a ticket.

Since the bus strike began last week, a growing number of drivers have been blocking intersections, slowing progress on clogged downtown streets when stoplights change, said Ty Fukumitsu, one of the city's traffic signal engineers.

Beginning today, Honolulu police will begin handing out $77 tickets to those drivers.

"It's been getting worse and worse each day," said Fukumitsu, who watches over and winces at commuters from the Traffic Control Center. He has 135 cameras to choose from.

"Please don't block the intersections," he said.

Morning commuters have shifted their arrival times about an hour earlier, ending rush-hour an hour earlier as well. But while afternoon drivers are leaving an hour earlier — about 3:30 p.m. — rush hour continues to last until 6:30 p.m., he said.

People are adjusting, but there are just too many of them, he said.

"Because there are so many more cars in the downtown area, the roadways are congested," he said. "There is not gridlock, but they are not moving at a fast pace."

Predicting traffic patterns has been difficult with no two days of the strike the same, Fukumitsu said.

"We adjust it one day and it is totally different the next day," he said. "There is a lot of traffic on the roadways but everyone is driving with aloha."

He said he sees this on his monitors.

"They are being very courteous," he said. "They are allowing people to cut in and to merge. We want to encourage that."