Q. For several years, early-morning surfers, fishermen and joggers/walkers who have been parking for decades along Saratoga Road in Waikiki have been steadily losing their metered parking.

There are only 19 metered parking spots on Saratoga Road and they've been slowly disappearing. First three went to Verizon Federal and now at least five more are being used for the construction of the Trump Tower. This left the public with 10 metered stalls.

Then on April 22 the construction teams took three to five more metered spots. This leaves the public with between five and seven spots.

As a further exacerbation of the situation, construction workers are now arriving before dawn and taking just about every remaining spot. They sleep in their cars/trucks for a time before entering the adjacent parking lot. Meanwhile, those people who arrive early to surf, fish or jog are lucky to find between two or three open metered parking spots! This is just downright unfair because these metered parking spots are for the people, and the people are being deprived by the businesses currently working on the Trump project. These businesses should bear the cost of parking their own workers in the adjacent parking lot. They should not allow their workers to take away the people's parking! What can be done?

A. Well, good news first. According to Kobayashi and Kiewit Joint Venture, the permits for 11 of those parking spots expired yesterday, so that should help relieve the problem a bit.

More generally speaking, however, in a dense area like Waikiki, the possibilities are rather limited.

The city awards parking permits near construction sites in part because it's safer and more efficient than the alternatives.

Like it or not, big cranes and trucks are going to have to stop to load and unload supplies. If they don't have a parking space, they'll just block traffic.

City Councilman Charles Djou points out that dedicated parking spaces means construction workers won't be in a situation in which they are maneuvering equipment around parked cars and potentially causing damage.

If they pay the meters, the workers have a right to take up the remaining stalls.

Djou thinks you have a legitimate gripe, however, and offered as one possibility asking parking enforcement to patrol the area more often.

His other suggestion was asking Outrigger, which holds the parking permits, to temporarily give up some spaces in their lots. That didn't pan out.

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