QUESTION: People living in Hawaii Kai were concerned about the city replacing 59 lights along Lunalilo Home Road with 179 lights. People cried out, “;Why?”; and were concerned about light pollution. The city administration has three more large jobs nearby on the drawing board, but we want to see what this replacement looks like before we say yea or nay! Why is it taking so long to complete this project? There are still overhead wires keeping the old lights lit.

ANSWER: Part of the delay is because the replacement lights “;are not off-the-shelf type of lighting fixtures and need to be ordered from specialty manufacturers,”; said Collins Lam, deputy director of the city Department of Design and Construction.

The project calls for replacing the previously installed 150-watt high-pressure sodium lighting fixtures with 100-watt high-pressure sodium flat-lens lighting fixtures along Lunalilo, between Kalanianaole Highway and Wailua Street, “;and meet the recommended lighting levels for the roadway,”; he said.

The contractor's “;best guess”; is that this will happen in March, depending on when the new fixtures are delivered.

Once the fixtures are installed and activated, the old light assemblies will be removed.

“;The requested change is being processed as a change order to the contract, and the 100-watt high-pressure fixtures, as well as the flat-lens, had to be ordered from the mainland,”; Lam said.

After the new lights are installed, Lam said, both the city and community will have the opportunity to evaluate and comment before the city decides whether to continue with the rest of the project.

At least until that decision is made, the old lights will remain along Lunalilo, from Wailua Street to Hawaii Kai Drive.

QUESTION: At the H-3 and Pali tunnels, radio reception is bad or not operating at all. It has been years since all was well. What's the problem? Please look into it.

ANSWER: There is no AM radio reception in the Kaneohe-bound lanes of the H-3 freeway tunnel, confirmed Tammy Mori, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

Blame that on a motor vehicle accident that damaged one of the antennas.

However, because the damage involved only “;a small part,”; repairs are expected to be made in about three to four months, Mori said.

There should be no problem with FM broadcasts in either direction through the H-3 tunnels, or to AM stations in the Halawa-bound lanes, she said.

It's a different story for the Pali tunnels, where there has been no radio reception since before 1998, when the state took over maintenance of the tunnels from the city, Mori said.

The latest estimate to install a new system in those tunnels is $80,000 to $100,000.

Because radio reception in the Pali tunnels is not at the top of the Transportation Department's funding priorities, there are no plans to restore the reception any time soon.

It's the same story for the Wilson tunnels. In January 2008 the department said it would cost about $100,000 to repair the long-broken radio transmission system, so no repairs were scheduled for the “;foreseeable future”; (see hsblinks.com/1qi).

Mori pointed to higher-priority projects on the department's lists, including bridge rehabilitation and maintenance, slope stabilization, roadway maintenance, as well as emergency repairs following heavy rains and flooding.