Kokua Line
Kokua Line
Question: A few months ago, Hawaiian Electric Co. added "twins" to the poles on Liholiho Street, mauka of Wilder Avenue. There is a pile of dirt and a hole in the sidewalk, covered with plywood and orange cones. When will this situation be corrected? The pile of dirt also has rocks and continuously spills into the walking area of the sidewalk. The orange cones are tipping over, too, and making the driving hazardous. Please help! HECO shores up poles
that look endangeredAnswer: The pile of dirt and cones should be gone by now.
HECO spokeswoman Linda Chinn explained that HECO, about a year ago, undertook a survey of all its poles, earmarking for removal those that looked to be "endangered." The poles on Liholiho Street are part of that program.
"Phase I was to identify those poles and give them a 'partner' to shore them up for the short term," she said. Apparently, in putting in one of those "twin" poles, the sidewalk was damaged, resulting in the dirt and rocks. The contractor was asked to clean up, she said Friday. The work was to have been done this past weekend. Phase II, the current phase, is to take the old poles out.
"One added wrinkle" is that they are shared poles -- jointly used by HECO and Verizon Hawaii -- which means both companies have to be involved in the changeover.
HECO began the replacement of the poles yesterday, while Verizon was to do it at the end of this week, Chinn said.
"The critical pole, the one that was causing the dirt and spills, will be removed at that time. The other one or two will be addressed within the next week or so."
Q: During the current construction work on Kalanianaole Highway, why can't the contra-flow lane on Kalanianaole Highway begin at Analii Street instead of where it is today? It starts about two streets later (going to town). If they began the contra-flow lane earlier, it would make the traffic flow faster.
A: "We have not had any measurable delays due to the construction. It's very minor," according to Marilyn Kali, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.
Thus, there is no thought to making any changes to the contra-flow lane. In fact, moving the contra-flow lane farther east would have a greater impact on traffic because the lane would be longer, she said.
Lengthening the lane also would create a problem for vehicles that need to make a U-turn to travel west, she said.
"We think it's working well right now."
Before the current roadwork began, it took about four minutes to travel through the area; it now takes nine to 10 minutes, Kali said.
"So, the delay is not great."
Mahalo
On April 12 my husband was driving to Pearl City to make a payment to Allstate, but stopped to do some errands. He left the checks in the car.Somehow, because of the gusty weather, the checks flew out the narrow slit of the car window and into the parking lot at Taco Bell in Waipahu. We went though some harrowing moments because we didn't know what would happen. But when my husband went to Allstate with new checks, he was told some kind woman and her grandson had hand-delivered the lost checks. The woman left a message on our phone but did not leave her name. We just want to say mahalo to her and her grandson. It makes us feel really great that there are people out there who have a kind heart. -- Flo Johnasen
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