MAHALO

GOOD SAMARITANS CAME TO AID OF O'AHU COUPLE

My husband and I were traveling home to Pearl City on our Harley Davidson on Sunday afternoon on the H-1 Freeway when the wet road (along with traffic quickly slowing because of a police car up ahead) got the better of us and our bike went down. I skidded down the lane (my husband said I looked like I was driving a car — without the car), the bike landed on top of my husband and he spun around on the road. Luckily, he sustained minor injuries and, other than being shaken, I didn't have a scratch.

There were several people who stopped to offer assistance. One man had a first-aid kit and cleaned up my husband's shoulder. One man asked if we needed an ambulance. The lady who had been traveling behind us also offered assistance.

All of these good Samaritans said that we had an angel looking over us.

Personally, we feel that we had several angels — among them these wonderful, caring people. With complacency becoming so prevalent, they were like a breath of fresh air.

We can only hope that these people see this and know that we are very thankful for all that they did to help us.

TRIBUTE

SADDENED AT LOSS OF TWO GREAT MUSICIANS

I was so saddened at the passing of two great old-time Hawaiian musicians: Aunty Genoa Keawe and Uncle Ray Kane.

I know it's part of life, but nevertheless it is a great, great loss.

We here in Colorado will miss their wonderful music as much as you.

I will still do hula to Genoa's songs and listen to my records of Ray.

WANA'AO AND KEOLU

ROAD WORK CREWS ARE DOING A TERRIFIC JOB

The construction folks and the police who are handling the road work on Wana'ao and Keolu are doing a remarkable job of keeping traffic moving day and night.

As someone who travels both roads several times a day (partly out of habit, partly because I have to), I want to say thank you — and I hope everyone else does, too — you are doing a tough but terrific job.

APPLICATION SERVICE

CONDO BUILDER HAPPY WITH PERMIT PROCESS

I read with great interest the Feb. 21 article in The Honolulu Advertiser's BusinessToday section regarding the Web-based building-permit application service launched by the city Department of Planning and Permitting.

The article fell on the heels of a very positive experience I recently had with DPP in our effort to secure permits for Keola La'i, Alexander & Baldwin's newest condominium project near Downtown Honolulu.

Thanks to the responsiveness and excellent service provided by Tim Hiu and members of DPP's building division, 130 new buyers were able to close on their new Keola La'i units, as scheduled, on Feb. 25, with many more closings to follow in the weeks to come.

I greatly appreciate the efforts being made at DPP to improve their operations and to be more customer-friendly. This truly benefits the people of Honolulu.

LAND USE

O'AHU MUST PLAN FOR WALKABLE COMMUNITIES

With recent bills, our city leaders are discussing implementing appropriate land-use changes to ensure that Honolulu citizens can finally unburden themselves of the mandatory need to travel by car on overcrowded roads in sprawled-out developments for even the most basic tasks of daily living.

With implementation of these land-use changes and resulting compact development, citizens can relieve themselves of the most expensive household expense after their mortgage/rents — the car.

By lowering parking requirements, providing for more mixed-use housing/services around our new rail transit station and increasing density around the route, the City Council is acknowledging that from here on out we will plan our communities around people, not around the car.

Like so many other urban centers have already done, our next step will be to remove all requirements for parking and use the space instead for housing and other walkable community services.

As we know by now, when we plan our city for cars, we get more cars, but when we plan for pedestrians, we get more pedestrians.

TRANSIT

STEEL-ON-STEEL RAIL IS TOO NOISY, INSTRUSIVE

We were dismayed to learn that the technology the independent panel selected for Honolulu's fixed guideway system is steel wheels on steel rail.

This will generate intolerable noise for the thousands and thousands of hard-working, tax-paying residents who live along the transit corridor. This will have a greater impact as it approaches the densely populated areas from Downtown to Ala Moana and eventually Waikiki.

We lived near such a system on the Mainland, and it sounds like a freight train. How will people sleep?

We want to be supportive of our mayor and our City Council, and we appreciate the efforts they have put forth.

We ask them now to take a second look and choose a less noisy and less intrusive technology.

MONORAIL IS STYLISH, COMFORTABLE, QUIETER

I'm disappointed that the transit panel didn't choose monorail as the mode of transit.

Overhead monorail guideways are stylish, futuristic, narrower gauge and cast minimal shadows on the ground compared to wide fixed-rail elevated track.

At Walt Disney World, the monorail trains are fast, comfortable, and whisper-quiet as they whoosh by, since they use rubber tires.

A monorail system for Honolulu would be an attraction in itself. Most of all, we could tell people, "Ride the HONORAIL!"