ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Ainaloa community on the Big Island last week opened the gate that had blocked the 10.5-mile Puna Emergency Access Road for a year. Despite the opening, many people agree that the road is substandard and unsafe.
Reopened Puna
road still unsafeThe county says it has no money
to make improvements
to the emergency route
AINALOA, Hawaii >> Big Island resident Stephanie Bath nearly got hit by a car as she drove on the Puna Emergency Access Road on Friday. It happened on a blind hill on the narrow, rural road, which has no shoulders and bushes leaning over the pavement.
"The guy came whipping over the hill on my side of the road," Bath said. Fortunately, the driver swerved back into his own lane. "It's dangerous. It's extremely unsafe," she said.
The near miss took place on the same day that the Ainaloa Community Association reopened a locked gate that had effectively closed the emergency road for a year because of concerns about safety.
"I think they're trying to find some kind of happy medium," County Councilman Gary Safarik said.
Closing the road did not work, according to Ainaloa community Vice President Philip Brazier. The county did not substantially improve the road, and some people simply drove around the locked gate, he said.
Hawaii County has put up warning signs and lowered speed limits on the road to 25 mph, but there is no money for major improvements, said county Public Works Department chief Bruce McClure.
Cutting down a handful of blind hills would cost $2 million, and bringing the road completely to county standards would cost up to $15 million, he said. The county does not have the money.
The county created the emergency road in the late 1990s by linking two private, substandard roads, one in Ainaloa and one in Hawaiian Acres. The idea was to offer a second road out of the lower Puna District, as there is only one highway out of the area and any blockage of the road, such as flooding or a major accident, would trap thousands of residents in the area.
Except for a one-third-mile link created by the county, the 10.5-mile emergency road remains in private ownership, so Ainaloa and Hawaiian Acres residents are liable for any accidents.
Now Hawaiian Acres residents like Bath are worried that reopening of the road means renewed danger.
Hawaiian Acres Community Association President Jack Brauher reluctantly agrees the road should be open, but says people have sped past him at 60 mph on the 25-mph road.
Association Vice President Danny Brouillette, who is against opening the road, said drug dealers use the rural road because they know police will not follow them. Police have told him they have abandoned chases on the road because it is too dangerous, he said.
"I've sat in the bushes and listened to drug deals going on right in front of me," Brouillette said.
Patrolling the road is low priority, said police Maj. David Kawauchi. "Every district is short (of officers) right now."
