2008-01-03 THUALALAI - Laserfiche WebLink

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as much, where theyÓre closer to where they work or closer to where, or closer to where they shop, or allow shopping to be closer to their homes. I attended a lecture sometime ago by the head of planning for the National Association of Governors and he said something a little scary. He says once you have traffic congestion you always have it, and you never build your way out of it. We building and we do have to do some improvements because of safety concerns, and thereÓs just no way, and itÓs extremely expensive. WeÓve fallen behind in Kona and to catch up, itÓs unfortunately if you look at the cost of things, the cost of Alii Parkway for roughly three miles is something like $40 million. ItÓs extremely expensive to do this. And weÓre going to be catching up for awhile. But you must not, youÓre not just going to build your way out of it by building better roads. We have to do these things in improving the land use pattern to make this, to try to fix this problem. But itÓs not a problem that is created or fixed on a level of a single subdivision. GALDONES:Commissioner Kubota? KUBOTA:My final, my final statement. So, in other words, after explanation, and donÓt think I do not understand that long-range planning and looking at the big picture is very, very important, as you pointed out. However, we have this problem on Palani Street that has been haunting us for years. Do we, as Commissioners, go on with business as usual because the changes arenÓt, road fixing is not the primary thing that is going to change the congestion or the danger on the road? Or, the next question that I have is, is it physically, financially possible to fix Palani Road to ease the congestion? Is there a plan in somebodyÓs mind within our State, whether itÓd be County or Department of Transportation, to put more mauka-makai arterials in Kona to alleviate the problem at Palani? I mean, yeah, I donÓt know the answers to it. I mean, weÓve been chasing a pipeÓs dream, I think. Because IÓve been on this Commission now for 4-1/2 years and the problem has been Palani. And they keep, as Mr. Stirling said, and I sympathize with the people in the community, because it always comes up. Every time we have development in Kona, it affects Palani. Palani is the road that is highlighted in my mind and it will be forever until such time as some relief is here. And I donÓt know what to do is, I guess, where IÓm coming YUEN:Some specifics -. I donÓt like to pass the buck but the Hinalani- Mamalahoa intersection is State and I donÓt know what theyÓre planning. Okay, Palani is County. One thing we should do as a Department or Commission is not have additional, we should not rezone to allow more lots that enter off of Palani. ThatÓs important. And it sounds very automatic but there was a rezoning about four years ago that, as just that, just below the ÐSÑ curve. As far as another mauka-makai, itÓs in the CountyÓs plans. We have, thereÓs a developer that, itÓs something that is, would be, have to be in conjunction with a truly major development; and even then itÓs quite unlikely that the developer can carry it on their own. But when we have developers come in with major pieces of property between Kaahumanu and Mamalahoa, this is something that weÓre working on 15