Palisades residents say speeding ruins area's quality of life

By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer

PEARL CITY — Tom Sugita knows that people speed up and down the sloped streets of his Pacific Palisades neighborhood because he has stood on his street corner and clocked drivers with a radar gun.

Yesterday afternoon was no different. Of the six cars he tracked between 3 p.m. and 3:10 p.m. going past his house on Aumakua Street, four were going almost 40 mph and two sped past at nearly 50 mph.

"A lot of people don't realize how fast they are going," said Sugita, 67, a retired businessman who has lived in Pacific Palisades for more than 12 years. "Quality of life is important, and one guy speeding endangers everyone's quality of life."

Sugita is not alone in his belief that residents and visitors to this small, hillside community situated above Pearl City on the foothills of the Koolaus drive too fast. Yesterday, other residents complained that the community's three main drags, Komo Mai Drive, A'uhuhu Street and Aumakua, are treacherous stretches of roads where drivers race both uphill and down.

"It seems the speed signs no mean nothing," said Kenneth Ikenaga, 63, who has lived in his house on A'uhuhu since the mid-1960s. "Speeding is the worse I've seen it (up here)." Ikenaga said that if he sees someone speed by his house, he tries to get the license plate number before calling police.

Using a radar gun he bought for $165 from a sporting goods store, Sugita spent three months last year clocking cars across the street from his house for an hour each day. He documented each car by color and time it passed, and found that most cars were going between 38 mph and 43 mph in the 25 mph zone.

Police Maj. Bryan Wauke of District 3, which includes Pearl City, yesterday said that when residents complain of speeding, he informs his lieutenants about the area and time of the complaints. He said officers are assigned to go to the area and conduct speed enforcement. Otherwise, an automated speed trailer, which displays the speed of passing cars, is wheeled into a visible location.

"They might not get it (speed enforcement) every week or every day, but that's because we have to respond to other areas of the district," Wauke said.

Pacifico Sabio Jr. has lived on Komo Mai Drive since 1962, and says his area on the drive, between the stoplight fronting the Pacific Palisades Community Center and the stoplight at A'uhuhu Street, turns into a drag strip late at night.

He said he has seen bikers popping wheelies go flying up the street. Almost every morning between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., he said, he can hear the unmistakable sound of revved engines and screeching tires.

"These guys burn rubber, they just take off," he said.

Sugita, a graduate of the Citizen's Police Academy, said he is trying to keep the police and the city aware of the speed situation in his neighborhood. He said he understands that when drivers head downhill, especially on some of the steeper roads in Palisades, they can't help but go fast.

But he said, that doesn't mean drivers shouldn't slow down.

"There is a blatant disregard toward law enforcement in the community," he said. "There is no reason for speeding on O'ahu, the distances are too short."

Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.