Posted on: Saturday, March 26, 2005
Downtown loses brick walkways
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
A city road crew is spending much of the holiday weekend tearing out two brick crosswalks that for years have linked sections of Fort Street Mall in downtown Honolulu.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Bricks are not being removed from the mall, he said.
The project caught downtown workers and residents by surprise.
"We haven't heard a reason why they're going to do that," said Downtown Neighborhood Board member Tom Smyth. "It's very attractive through there; it gives the continuity to Fort Street Mall."
Brennan said the work is being done on the holiday weekend because it will be "far less disruptive" than on a typical downtown workday. He said he did not have a precise cost estimate for the work but figured it would be the price of the asphalt and the overtime pay to have the workers come in on the holiday and weekend.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Robilio said he noticed that the city had replaced some of the brick fairly recently and then some of the road sank again. "After the rain, it was still uneven," he said.
Dina Alcantara, who works at a downtown bank, said asphalt won't look as good.
"If they want to beautify the downtown area, they should put the brick back," she said. "It looks much better."
But Downtown Neighborhood Board Chairwoman Lynne Matusow believes that the brick just isn't practical. And she has seen similar problems with the brick along nearby Kekaulike Mall.
"They're not level," Matusow said. "We've said this all along — that they're useless."
The crew doing the work said the brick has been repaired again and again.
"Every time it sinks, we have to repair it," said city road construction maintenance supervisor James Oleole. "It becomes a trip hazard."
By midday yesterday, the crews had scraped the bricks from Merchant Street. But on Queen Street, some of the problems with the bricks could be seen in the uneven surface and the different shades of bricks from previous repairs.
Matusow would like to see more brick replaced.
She said the bricks are "just a modern version of cobblestones," which historically provided an attractive look without shifting. "At least they were permanently uneven," she said.
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.
The brick crosswalks at Fort Street Mall and Merchant and Queen streets are being replaced with asphalt because damaged bricks in the roadway pose a safety hazard, said city spokesman Bill Brennan.
Pedestrians cross Queen Street at the makai end of Fort Street Mall, where city workers on overtime pay this weekend are removing the bricks, which have been cited as a safety hazard with their uneven surface. Multiple repairs have been made to the bricks in the past.
Norm Robilio, who works near the crosswalks, said he thinks that repaving the road without the bricks makes sense. "It's good to see they're doing improvements," he said.
City workers, from left, Efren Estomago, Darryl Diaz and David Bambadji took out the brick pavement on Merchant Street at Fort Street Mall yesterday. The area will be replaced with asphalt.
