Posted on: Friday, December 10, 2004
Elderly won't use still-unlit bus stop in Salt Lake
| • | Map: Planned bus stop lights |
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
Three months after the city announced plans to affix a powerful light to a bus stop on Ala Ilima Street in Salt Lake as a crime deterrent, the light remains uninstalled and residents are still afraid to wait for buses at night.
By day, the covered bus stop at 3215 Ala 'Ilima St. looks like any other — a bench, trash can and a newspaper rack. By night the stop has been called a gang hangout by neighbors and is the scene of fights, drug dealing, theft and intimidation of riders.
In August, two men were stabbed at the bus stop and sent to the hospital in serious condition. No one has been arrested, police said, because the victims will not cooperate with the investigation.
"After sunset you can't come here," said an 80-year-old resident waiting for the bus at about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. "They turn over the trash can and write graffiti. We should have more police patrolling the area. We are all retired taxpayers and we cannot ride the bus."
The woman did not want her name printed for fear of retaliation against herself and her grandson, who attends Moanalua High School. The retired federal worker said that if she needs to go out at night, she calls a taxi.
Ala 'Ilima Street is lined with high rise apartment buildings and is the most densely populated area in the state with more than 79,000 people per square mile. Many are elderly residents on fixed incomes and others are single parents living in apartments.
Janice Dinken, the general manager of the 310-unit Sunset Lakeview apartments directly behind the bus stop, said the situation is dangerous for her elderly residents. Several have been mugged at the bus stop or after getting off the bus by criminals who followed them. She is frustrated that it is taking so long for a simple light to be installed.
In an Aug. 26 letter to Dinken, Cheryl Soon, then city Department of Transportation Services director, said the department asked for a light to be placed inside the shelter to discourage loitering and criminal activities. Soon said the department would use the shelter as a test case to see if adding lighting is an effective deterrent to vandalism, crime and harassment. City bus stops are not lighted.
City spokeswoman Carol Costa said the city has been trying to install the light, but the work has run into several delays.
A special solar powered light was ordered and when it arrived it did not have the needed candle strength and was returned. A new light has been ordered, but will not arrive for weeks, she said.
Dinken said Clyde Earl, chief of the transportation department's Public Transit Division, called her this week and said it would be six to eight weeks before the new light arrives and in the meantime, the city plans to remove the bus stop roofs to make them more visible to police.
"We don't know if the light is going to solve the problem," Dinken said. "If they take the covering off it might make a little bit of a difference while we are waiting for the lights. If that is what they want to do, fine, as long as they are doing something."
For now, if elderly residents want to catch a bus after dark, they walk to a different stop farther away or huddle together a safe distance from the stop and rush to the bus when it arrives, Dinken said.
Police Capt. Raymond Ancheta said officers are aware of the problem and patrol the area regularly, but a bus stop is a public place and everyone has a right to be there.
"If people are afraid and there are suspicious people at the bus stop — they are just sitting there after the buses go by — they could call 911 and report it and officers will go by," Ancheta said. "Officers are stepping up their patrols and trying to be as visible as possible. They haven't noticed anything they can really pursue in regards to any on-view types of criminal activity."
Some residents say the youths hanging out at the bus stop are high school age with no place else to go and often ask for money or cigarettes. Police could not say if there is any gang affiliation but graffiti on the benches seems to mark territory.
Richard Larson, resident manager of the 352-unit Century West apartments, said the criminal activity has spread to the bus stop in front of his building at 3161 Ala 'Ilima and to another covered stop across the street near Hoa Aloha Neighborhood Park. There is only a concrete bench at the stop in front of his building, but he now wants the city to remove it because elderly residents are afraid to use it an night with groups of youths hanging out and are forced to stand anyway.
"It just collects the worst kind of people," he said. "We've started a petition to have it removed."
Larson, recently appointed to the area's neighborhood board, is trying to organize a citizens patrol to fight the problem.
"The whole stabbing really touched a nerve with me," said Larson, a former Marine. "I'm a big guy. I'm not afraid of things, but I wouldn't walk down the street alone."
Larson and Dinken have asked their private security guards to keep an eye out for residents waiting at the bus stops at night.
"I make sure my guards are visual as a slight deterrent to these people so they know they are being watched," Larson said.
Dinken said the problem of youths taking over the bus stops gets worse when school is out and elderly residents carrying shopping bags during the holiday season are potential theft victims.
"They are my residents. I need to keep a watch. They are like my family. I'm not going to let them go out there and get hurt."
Reach James Gonser at 535-2431 or jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.
