O'ahu needs to be safer for walking, bicycling
By John B. Goody and Dr. Khalil J. Spencer
There is no silver bullet that can solve O'ahu's transportation dilemma. Our travel demands are just too complex for a single fix.
Advertiser library photo • May 1999
While solutions under discussion have focused exclusively on high-end, billion-dollar technologies that take many years to implement, we have ignored some effective, easy-to-implement, low-cost solutions that will improve both the mobility and health of the community.
One reason few commuters pedal to work is because we have not built bicycle routes from where people are to where they want to go.
Nearly everyone walks; many of us bike. How far and how often depend on the person, but many of us don't walk or bike as much as we'd like because we don't think it's safe, pleasant or convenient. As a result, we use our cars for trips that don't require a car, like taking the kids to school half a mile away, going to the store, and in some cases, going to work.
For many, these trips would be made without driving a car if there were just a safe way to go by bike or foot.
Over-dependence on cars is like having only one tool in your tool-box. If you only have a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. This results in a lot of bad work. That's also why we have bad traffic on O'ahu: Our sole transportation tool is the car.
It's past time we used a few more tools, and they don't all have to be power tools. A balanced transportation system would make it practical, attractive, and safe for people to walk or bike short distances about town, or about the neighborhood. Forty percent of automobile trips (nationally) are less than two miles long. You can leisurely walk a mile in less than half an hour or bike two miles in 10 minutes with no parking hassles. Given our traffic congestion, many of these short trips could be done without a car at little loss in time while improving traffic flow for others taking longer trips.
One reason more people don't walk or use bikes for transportation is because we have not built bike routes from where people are to where they want to go.
Instead, there are segments that start and end in arbitrary locations. In many places, it is not safe to cross the street or walk along the roadway. That our system is out of balance is evident from the traffic congestion we face every day and in the growing obesity of people conditioned to make every trip by car.
If only half of these short trips were made by biking or walking, think what a difference that would make both on our roadways and to our collective waistlines.
Bike-to-Work Week.
Many trips and occasions require a car or public transportation, and these trips are well served by the roads and highways that dominate the physical environment of our neighborhoods. But there has been little investment in the trips that don't need a car, and there is a reservoir of unmet demand for them.
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Yet proposals for bike lanes in places like Young Street or Keolu Drive in Kailua have drawn indignant complaints from those who think the public rights of way are only for cars. Although the rights of pedestrians and cyclists are protected in law, public investment to protect these rights has been woeful.
In 2001, while 5.7 percent of us in Hawai'i commuted by walking and biking, pedestrian and cyclist deaths as a proportion of all traffic fatalities exceeded 25 percent, worst in the nation.
By 2003, that percentage had grown to 28.6 percent, and we remained the worst. Only 1.2 percent of our transportation expenditures have gone to bike or pedestrian facilities, and none of Hawai'i's federal safety set-aside funds were spent on bike/pedestrian safety projects.
It's past time we correct this imbalance.
The needed changes are relatively simple, inexpensive by transportation standards and good for the community:
• Curb reckless and irresponsible use of automobiles.
• Enforce speeding laws.
• Enforce crosswalk laws — these measures alone would save many lives and make our communities far friendlier places.
• Provide complete bike routes on major commuting corridors where such routes are practical: Hawai'i Kai to town; 'Ewa to town; and to the Manoa University of Hawai'i campus. In cities where coherent bike routes are established, a significantly greater proportion of trips are made by bike rather than by car.
Where bike lanes are built that actually connect people with their destinations, they are well used. Given our favorable climate and flat terrain in the urban corridor, we might expect from 8 percent to 10 percent to commute by bike along safe, well-designed and maintained bike routes. Many bike commuters make the trip now without such routes. The potential is greater than that of the commuter ferry, and at far less cost.
And what of the alternative? Consider the consequences of not adequately providing for cycling and walking, in ever-growing congestion, in frustration, and on the shape of our built environment. Where will all the new roads go, and if built, where will we park the growing number of cars they bring? Who will be displaced by the construction, and who will pay for it?
O'ahu is saturated with cars now, and our population continues to grow, both in numbers and in girth. We will choke on the result. It's happening already.
By increasing the flexibility and diversity of O'ahu's transportation network, we would be providing transportation alternatives. Every option does not need to suit every travel need, which is true for cycling as it is for the proposed rail system or commuter ferry; we need more than one tool to do the job.
Cycling and walking are efficient, cost-effective options that have largely been neglected by our transportation agencies. At this point, they offer the best return to us all on our transportation dollar: low construction cost, positive social impact, reduced congestion, reduced reliance on imported fuel, less pollution, less frustration, better public health.
We can put it to work in a matter of months. Why have we neglected it?
John B. Goody is a member of the board of directors of the Hawaii Bicycling League. Dr. Khalil J. Spencer is a former president of the league.
