I've been trying for four months to get the Department of Transportation to change the street lamps on Kamehameha Highway, primarily one at 53-526 Kamehameha Highway. Out of curiosity, I drove from Sacred Falls to the Kahuku Police Station--about seven miles--and counted 22 lights out, seven in Hauula, where you have the highest rate of traffic deaths. What does it take to get action?" DOT sheds light
on dark stretchesPatience. Yours is not an uncommon complaint.
"Most windward lights are back on," a Department of Transportation spokeswoman said last week. The rest were expected to be repaired this week.
"The night crew (which handles the repairs) has been out for the last week replacing all the lights," she said. The long delay was partly due to a shortage of workers.
There was no direct response to your question, other than "we will try to keep up with repairs."
Why are so many street lights out in some areas along the H-2 freeway, especially near the Mililani Mauka offramp? They've been out for weeks. I've noticed this staggered outage before elsewhere. Is the state trying to save money on its electric bill? What if you have an accident or flat tire where it's dark and dangerous? To me, it's a safety issue.
By the time you read this, the lights should have long been fixed. The Transportation Department is not trying to save money by staggering outages, a spokesman said.
"Safety is the priority and we do respond in that order," another spokeswoman said.
The Mililani outages were caused when a temporary transformer, installed by Castle & Cooke as part of the developer's rebuilding of the mauka offramp, went down, said department maintenance engineer Martin Okabe. Other problems then followed: "That's why (the lights) were up, then down," he said.
More Kokua Line
in today’s Star-Bulletin:
- Traffic leads to bus 'bunching'
- Let cooler heads prevail
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