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Under the Sun Cynthia Oi |
Hey, I’m walking
here, I’m walking!
" ... As home we walk with tripping feet, we look before we cross the street."This last bit of a little song from my kindergarten days flashed through my brain the other day as I stood along Kapahulu Avenue. We sang the words just before we were released from the classroom to make our way home. They were a constant reminder to pay attention to traffic, which in those days was far tamer than now.
They came to mind after I'd had to take a hasty step back from the edge of the sidewalk when the side-view mirror protruding from a passenger van brushed my cheek as the vehicle whizzed by. Having barely escaped injury, I cleared my head and focused on the task at hand, which was to get across the street safely.
It wasn't easy and it wasn't quick. I was at a crosswalk, but as pedestrians know, those white lines painted on the asphalt mean little to most motorists rushing intently to get god knows where. I'm short, but my bulk should make me quite obvious to drivers. I'm using body language to signal my desire to cross , but went unnoticed or ignored.
My brother-in-law, who is about 6 feet tall and a bear of a fellow, was with me. They'd noticed him, you'd think, but he was finally reduced to having to wave his arms to get the driver in the near right lane to see us. Copycat creatures that they are, motorists in the other lanes also hit the brakes to allow us a few seconds to hustle across, but before we'd reached the other side, one of them -- a surly fellow in a Lincoln Navigator -- leaned on his horn in irritation.
He got the stink eye.
Pedestrians get no respect around Honolulu. If they are aware of them at all, drivers seem to view people on foot as hindrances. Even if they do slow down, they don't fully engage the brake, edging closer and closer -- kind of herding you along until you've just cleared their bumpers -- before they zoom, zoom, zoom on.
At traffic signals and stop signs, many invade pedestrian space, stopping their cars beyond those thick white lines or right on top of the crosswalks, and forcing people to detour into intersections. Right-hand turners key on looking left before putting pedal to the metal, but don't seem to see the pedestrians who are in the paths on their right.
The people in charge of roads and highways don't do pedestrians any favors either. Signals are geared to motor traffic first; pedestrians seem to be secondary considerations, given the number of obstacles placed in their paths. The Capitol District, for example, is rife with these tiny triangular "islands" where people on foot are supposedly sheltered amid asphalt barriers just a few inches high. As if these berms would stop or even slow a compact car much less the gas-guzzling monster SUVs popular with the trendy and the thoughtless these days.
Drivers complain that potholes are slow to be plugged, but pedestrians are well aware that cracked and heaved-up sidewalks are seldom, if ever, repaired. There are pavements in my neighborhood that have been fractured for so long they've become familiar landmarks; I'd get lost without them.
Even shopping centers anoint people in cars as their favored spenders. They are designed to get the driving buyer from vehicle to commodity to cash register with few hurdles -- other than finding a parking space big enough for the Hummer. But those who approach the cathedrals of consumerism on foot often have to zig and zag just to get inside.
There are exceptions, of course; drivers who are courteous, who hang back from the intersection so as not to hurry an elderly man through a crosswalk, who resist the temptation to cut in front of a bunch of lollygagging teenagers, who wait patiently until the wheelchair reaches the sidewalk. Are you one of them?
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin since 1976. She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.
