---

In ‘car culture,’
walking is unsafe
at any speed

Relocating to Hawaii Kai, bordering one of the loveliest pedestrian walkways on the island, I anticipated not only the health of walking, but easy access to groceries, pharmacy, clothing, garden and home equipment, and medical supervision, all within one gorgeous mile of beautifully laid sidewalks, curbcuts and slopes. Who needs a car here?

But why, I wondered, do I encounter few or no other pedestrians? I learned recently. I discovered that I am invisible.

As I crossed carefully on my walk signal, in rapid succession eight vehicles turning left invaded my striped, beautifully marked crossing. One does not dare stop! There was no safe direction, either by action or inaction. All I knew was that somehow I was counting the vehicles that kept turning into me, front and back; and I dared not let myself be overcome with panic. And eight such cars threatened me!

All but one or two vehicles sped up as they went through my allegedly safe crosswalk; in preparation for the raceway made of Hawaii Kai Drive between that major crossing and the Hawaii Kai Post Office.

I do not know what I did to stay alive; I remember reaching the other side as cars seven and eight brushed my skirt. I was past caring; I was somehow, miraculously safe! My legs had turned to jelly.

I marched the mile to our district police station on residual adrenaline, and made my report of the invasion of eight vehicles through my "walk" light. The reaction was that such is not particularly unusual. I mentioned that the cars sped up as they crossed into a 25-mph marked zone.

The answer I received to the major infraction of the 25 mph speed limit was: "We probably could make some citations there ..." I departed the police station, still in shock.

I began the mile-long hike home. Did that officer ever walk in our community? What, besides walking, makes a community more than a label? Why had I seen no pedestrians walking during my hike to the police station, either? In the middle of a gorgeous Saturday morning?

And then I understood: I was the last to understand that at no times is it safe to be a pedestrian in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I had to find that out for myself, and did! So, that is why my neighbors also do not walk to our luscious farmers markets. This is why my neighbor who survived every invasion of every Pacific island held by the enemy in World War II, is dangerously thin and probably malnourished: "Because to buy groceries means I have to take my life in my hands."

This is the same neighborhood where construction has been approved, and will commence soon, on 396 additional apartments for seniors.

One cannot legislate caring or love. In 2001, I went to quite a bit of trouble to present the same situation at another Honolulu crossing to the appropriate legislative committee, displaying the shreds of my own dress, torn when I simply dove into a crosswalk on the "walk" signal and pulled out an elderly neighbor unable to walk as fast as the crisis required. The committee voted 100 percent in favor of my findings and recommendations.

And nothing happened. Nothing whatsoever! No one actually, truly cared. I would suggest that if any committee members -- or police officers, for that matter -- plan on growing older, they'd better start caring. This is only one intersection, but this problem is a common one throughout the islands.

If decent people, drivers, neighbors, can cease focusing on the numbers of vehicles on the roads and instead face the mutually destructive habits of the all-dominant "car culture," a mere shift might penetrate the pathological grip of attitudes, which utterly and totally betray our pridefully held aloha spirit. We are shooting ourselves in the foot by attitudes which so reduce human beings to objects. And that is far more serious than ever-crowded freeways.

It is possible. We could be brought together as human beings to care about even "the least of these" -- we pedestrians. For we have the dream, the reality and the hope incipient in the aloha spirit.

---