Kokua Line
By June Watanabe
Friday, March 19, 1999
Kokua Line
The March bus pass features an antique figurine. The March bus pass has what looks like an undeveloped baby on the front. I used to work in an ob-gyn clinic and believe this is offensive. Why was this allowed? March bus pass
depicts a boy fishing,
not a fetusThe "undeveloped baby" is a figurine of a Hawaiian boy going fishing, although you can't see his straw hat or anything more than the top of his body, amid some leaves.
"We did not mean to offend anyone," said William Haig, manager of customer service for Oahu Transit Services, which runs TheBus system.
The March design is part of a year's series, from May 1998 to April 1999, using antique figurines photographed courtesy of Bailey's Antiques and Aloha Shirts store in Kapahulu, he said.
The monthly passes, designed by OTS's graphic designer, Sandy Hiraoka, have become collector's items in some circles. The basic theme for the passes is "A Touch of Aloha," Haig said.
The first designer pass was issued in May 1994. The colorful passes replaced plain, nondescript ones, which were easily counterfeited.
The current series received a local Pele Award for design last Saturday. The passes also were cited for a Pele Award last year. In 1997, they not only won a Pele Award, but awards from the American Public Transit Authority and the Hawaii Visitors Bureau.
The next series, beginning in May, will depict Hawaiian butterflies.
Isn't the parking structure at Honolulu Airport publicly owned? According to the law, people with a disabled person's parking pass can park without paying for the first 2-1/2 hours. Yet, when I go to the airport, I have to pay from the first half hour on. Can you print what the law is so a lot of disabled people don't have to go through what I went through? Unfortunately, the answer is not what you're expecting: you have to pay if you're parking in an unmetered space.
In 1997, based on a state attorney general's opinion, the airport restricted free handicapped parking for up to 2-1/2 hours to about 30 metered spaces at the airport.
Up to that time, anyone with a handicapped parking pass was allowed to park free at the airport up to the maximum time.
But because of a dispute about how the law was being interpreted, the attorney general issued an opinion saying the free privilege does not extend to unmetered areas. The parking garage is not considered a metered area.
Francine Wai, executive director of the state Commission on Persons with Disabilities, told Kokua Line earlier that some places may waive the parking fee for handicapped people, but "it's more out of charity than civil rights."
"When there is an attendant or another means to pay other than a meter, there is no difference between a disabled person or nondisabled individual other than what the establishment voluntarily decides to do," she said at the time.
Need help with problems? Call Kokua Line at 525-8686,
fax 525-6711, or write to P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Email to kokualine@starbulletin.com
