Pali rumble strips in Nu'uanu to be removed
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
The Pali Highway rumble strips are coming out.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
The state Transportation Department said yesterday it would comply with a request by the Nu'uanu Neighborhood Board to remove the 5-month-old rumble strips near Wyllie and Waokanaka streets.
Five months after rumble strips were installed on Pali Highway near Waokanaka Street in Nu'uanu, the state has ordered their removal. Nearby residents have been complaining about the noise caused by cars traveling over the strips.
"A work order was issued today for their removal," said Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa. No date for the work was set.
The neighborhood board voted unanimously Tuesday night to request the removal, responding to complaints from area residents that the strips created a noisy nightmare in their lives and living rooms.
"I'm just so relieved and thankful," said Setts Oyama, one of about a dozen homeowners on Ala Kimo Drive who led the battle against the rumble strips. "It's been such a horrible summer. I'll be able to sleep again."
Board members agreed to the removal if state and city officials take a number of new steps to protect highway safety through the neighborhood. Among actions residents demanded were more police patrols to nab speeders, new electronic speed indicators, new medial strip tree plantings, and creation of a roadway safety committee to monitor the problem.
"We wanted to make it absolutely clear that we're still concerned about safety, but we didn't think the rumble strips were helping," said Ellen Osborne, an Ala Kimo Drive resident who sat on a task force that fashioned a compromise approved by the board.
The $3,600 rumble strips were installed at the request of the neighborhood in early May as part of a larger $397,925 project designed to slow traffic on the highway, the scene of several fatal pedestrian accidents in recent years. Within days, the state spent another $6,000 to replace them with lower rumble strips because of complaints from motorists and motorcyclists.
Residents, however, said even the smaller rumble strips created a noise that reverberated throughout the valley, and they fought for months for their removal.
"It wasn't just the little da-da-da-da tapping you hear in your car. It was a great, heavy whacking sound that came right into my bedroom," said Oyama, whose mother was killed along the highway in 1962. "We couldn't have lived with those noises forever."
A traffic study done after the rumble strips were installed showed a 5 to 7 mph decrease in average speeds along the highway, but Transportation officials said they agreed to remove them because residents were involved in coming up with new safety solutions.
"We wanted to make sure they were on this community task force to help figure out what should be done about the greater problem of speeding and not just leave the responsibility in the hands of the state," Transportation Director Rod Haraga said. "If residents of a community oppose certain traffic safety measures, we want them to be part of the process to help solve those problems."
Task force member Audrey Hidano said help from police and the Transportation Department's acting Traffic Branch Manager Alvin Takeshita made the compromise possible. "We got all the pieces of the puzzle together and came up with a package that everyone could support," she said.
The state will study the request to put additional speed display signs and landscaping in the area. It also said other safety improvements made earlier, including permanent speed indicators, pedestrian warning signs and altered highway intersections will remain in place.
The cost of removing the rumble strips was not immediately known, Ishikawa said.
Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
