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Punchbowl crosswalk
not coming back

Question: The city recently paved Punchbowl Street, but took away the crosswalk that used to be in the middle of the street, by the state tax office and the Department of Transportation. Why?

Q: Is the city planning to put the crosswalk back between the state Tax Building and the Department of Transportation building? The crosswalk was removed and one more parking stall was added on the Diamond Head side of Punchbowl, seemingly too close to a fire hydrant. The crosswalk was heavily used and is greatly missed.

Answer: No doubt that mid-block crosswalk on Punchbowl, between Queen and Halekauwila streets, was much used.

Despite that, the city says it won't be put back, mainly for safety reasons, bolstered by other factors.

After the area was repaved, a subcontractor mistakenly put in temporary crosswalk markings. Those markings were immediately removed, said Mark Matsunaga, a spokesman for Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration.

The previous city administration planned to extend the two-way traffic pattern on Punchbowl, makai of King Street.

"With two-way traffic on Punchbowl, there were even greater safety concerns," Matsunaga said, so the plan was to eliminate the mid-block crosswalk.

Even though the Hannemann administration has since scrapped the two-way extension, the decision remained to eliminate the crosswalk.

One factor was that there are two nearby crosswalks -- one at Queen Street is 160 feet away from where the mid-block crosswalk was, while the Halekauwila Street crosswalk is 300 feet away.

Matsunaga cited a 1993 Oahu Pedestrian Safety report by the city Department of Transportation Services, which set up "warrant requirements for crosswalks." One of the requirements is that the next nearest crosswalk be no more than 600 feet away.

The distance between the Halekauwila and Queen street crosswalks is 460 feet, which would fall within the standard applied throughout most of the city, Matsunaga said.

He also noted that the original mid-block crosswalk had a handicap accessible curb ramp, but only on one side. During the repaving, the ramp was filled in when the crosswalk was covered over, Matsunaga said.

As it is, there are "no more project funds to install the wheelchair ramps," he said. At the very least, it would cost between $12,000 and $15,000 to replace the ramps "at each end," and that's barring complications.

Building those ramps may seem like a simple project, he said, but "every ramp is unique." In Honolulu, the problem is that the sidewalks tend to be narrow, with a "lot of (underground) crowding and congestion" in many areas.

As for the fire hydrant, he checked the site and said it met the code requirement, which calls for 10 feet between stall and hydrant.

"The bottom line," he said, "we don't intend to restore the crosswalk."

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