Laserfiche WebLink
SIRACUSA:Thank you. <br />GALDONES:Commissioners, any further questions? Commissioner Graham? <br />GRAHAM:I think as you recall from the prior hearing here, I had the same <br />sort of issue that Commissioner Siracusa brought up. Especially since there€s only five <br />of us here today, I don€t want to make a mistake on, you know, how I€m reading the <br />situation so I would like to get comment from the other Commissioners. But my sense is <br />this is a major highway and we do essentially have like a, you know, front road right <br />there that accesses to the Village; and to make more sort of intersections off the highway <br />is contrary to the whole concept of a major through highway, especially where there€s a <br />frontage road already in place. <br />AndI€malsoconcerned,asMs.Siracusaindicated,thatwewillcertainly,maygetinthe <br />future other applicants who own parcels along the road there wanting to do a similar <br />thing, and certainly more and more of the same, or would be more and more of what I <br />think is a poor design. And as I understand the recommendations we have now, it€s just <br />left up to the Department of Transportation to decide whether they think it€s okay and, to <br />me, that feels like kind of passing the buck. It doesn€t feel okay to me to take a highway <br />like that, which I think is a very beautiful highway and it€s the main route to go to our <br />Volcano National Park, in that they add an extra intersection. So I would appreciate <br />other comments from other Commissioners, or if you had some comment further from <br />what we did last time we had the meeting, and I didn€t see any discussion of this in the <br />Contested Case. So, thank you. <br />MR. MORTARA:Well, what we€ve tried to do with our, the situation that we have <br />on our lot is rather unique in that there is a road back behind the lot. But in order to get <br />access behind the lot, you€d actually have to drive another mile-and-a-half on both <br />Volcano Highway and then back onto Old Volcano Highway to get egress into the lot. <br />So it€s a very kind of confusing situation to be able to see a business from the main <br />highway and not be able to get to it with kind of a direct route. So we, our discussion <br />with the Department of Transportation, we came up with the one-way traffic scenario <br />where people coming up from Hilo could enter from the Belt Highway onto the property <br />and exit out onto Old Volcano Highway, drive back around, and connect up with the Belt <br />Highway again to continue on. People traveling from Volcano would have to enter via <br />Old Volcano Highway, and then enter into the lot through the back way. So what we€re <br />trying to do is mitigate traffic in-and-out of the project from Belt Highway. But you have <br />to remember that the Belt Highway is also the economic corridor for East Hawaii. And <br />under one hand we want to maintain the environment, the Volcano, and certainly that <br />highway is part of that. Then on the other hand we need that, we need to have the traffic <br />through our project to make it a successful project. So we€re really trying to balance that. <br />I think that that one-way traffic pattern is probably the best of both worlds in that we€re <br />getting some direct traffic in the way that makes sense and, also, acknowledging the fact <br />that we really don€t want to have a lot of busy in-and-out traffic from the Belt Highway. <br />5 <br /> <br />