Kokua Line
Answer: Yes. The two-lane traffic pattern in front of the building with some drivers making an "X" crossing in front of others will be eliminated.
Under the new plan, customers and postal trucks will enter from the left or ocean side. Customers will drive in one lane only in front of the post office and exit on the right or mountain side.
A snorkel mail drop box will be erected near that exit to allow drivers to reach out of their window and drop letters in the box, said Felice Cook, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service in Honolulu.
This is intended as an improvement over the present system in which drivers have to park their vehicles, get out and sometimes get wet in the rain as they walk to the mail drop box.
The 17 public parking stalls in front of the building will be restriped with diagonal lines to eliminate the sharp turns now required in parking. Postal vehicles will continue to enter on the left and continue straight to the very large back area to the loading and unloading docks.
Those postal vehicles will exit on the left also but without the X-crossing of vehicles in
front of each other since one of the present two lanes of traffic in front of the building will be eliminated.
Cook said the paperwork to make the changes was started last week. Despite the tricky X-crossing traffic pattern, there have been few accidents in the past 15 years, Cook said.
There have been no accidents involving postal vehicles.
In one case two customers were in an accident. In another, a customer hit a tree.
Other items in today's Kokua Line:
- Appealing a property owners' association decision
- Mahalos