COM 0106.075 2004-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Page 2 of 2 infrastructure (not to mention water, schools, police, sewage, etc). This is a false promise and helps no one. Affordable housing doesn't help anyone if the residents living there cannot get to theirjobs. Nor does it help if Kona and West I lawaii become less and less of an attractive tourist destination because people don't want to come to a place that has the same gridlock problems and lack of aloha spirit as the homes they are vacationing away from. The more we [urn West Hawaii into an area of gridlock, the more likely it is that we will endanger the tourist industry, which is the industry that Hawaii's economy is built upon and where many of thejobs exist for the people who need affordable housing. 5.) Connector roads must have something to connect to that makes sense. You can only make traffic Flow better on Alii Drive and other small roads into Kailua and beyond it to the north if you divert most of the northbound southbound traffic away from those roads to the main highway, Highway 1 1, before it even gets to Keahou so that it can travel on a faster, safer and better highway than the small roads. In fact, it will not alleviate traffic congestion to simply funnel more and more traffic into Highway I I without major improvements to that Highway. Instead, you will probably end up making the traffic on smaller roads even worse than it already is if you increase the gridlock on Highway I I by adding more large scale development along it, forcing people to desperately find anyway they can through town. Eventually, I believe turning I lghway I I into a divided four-lane parkway, at least from Keauhou all the way to the airport, before any more large scale development is approved in West Hawaii is really the only option we have. I believe that the residents of West I lawaii would strongly support you if you made such a highway the major emergency project on your agenda. I think it should be a beautiful, tree-lined parkway that attracts visitors, calms the nerves, screens the industrial areas, and gives visitors a sense that they are coming to a special place. Again, think of our current situation in West I lawaii as if a lava flow came down from Hualalai and wiped out Highway 1 I . You would have bulldozers out the next day to re-open the highway, because you would have no choice. Allowing any large- scale development that pours more traffic onto Highway t I before that highway is fixed is much like creating such a lava Flow. Please don't let that happen. Mahalq Robert Scarola P.U. Box 1778 Kailua-Kona, HI 96745 (808)329-5233 7/5/2005