HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0047.013 2020-2022 bill 1°1
C434K. 'T
From: Maris Gobins
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2020 9:10 PM
To: Council Testimony
Subject: Bill 217,draft#2
Dear Hawaii county council members,
e
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony re. Bill 217,draft#2 _...
As a resident of Waipi'o valley for the past 30 years,and a land owner in the valley for the past ten,) am opposed to W,,e plan to ban
pedestrian use of Waipi'o road.) am aware that,as a landowning resident, I would be exempt from the pedestrian ban,that is not my
concern.) am more concerned with the lack of thought put into solving the problem of overuse of the road in a fair and rational
manner.
Waipi'o road may not have been originally intended for recreational or fitness use, but nor was it originally intended for vehicular
traffic.ln fact it was most likely a foot path long before becoming a mule trail and only later a road.
In my years in the valley I have never owned a vehicle and have walked the hill countless times.ln those years traffic has increased
drastically with tourist and island resident vehicles alike and,although I have seen many a dangerous situation,those have almost
always involved vehicles with careless or uneducated drivers not pedestrians (pedestrians have the benefit of being able to get out
of the way before creating serious trouble, even if clueless at the start and no doubt are annoying to those driving).
Walking the hill I have never felt endangered by the amount of pedestrians on the hill,the amount of careless and uneducated
drivers,however,is frightening.
Making the road safer for all who use it is a good idea and limiting traffic,though lacking Aloha,may be a sad reality. But more
thought needs to be given to how that should be approached .
Do we really want to ban all the school aged children who, not having access to a ride down the hill,make the effort to carry their
surf boards down the hill for some healthy fun (as I said,I walk the hill frequently and know that during school breaks there are quite
a few of them).Their parents are tax payers in this county, do you think they believe that the tourists in their rental jeeps should be
given precedent over their kids?
And what about those county tax payers who care enough about the environment and their health to walk the hill rather than drive?
Pedestrian traffic causes little wear and damage to the road,the same cannot be said for vehicular traffic.
If the road is shut to pedestrians, isn't that only likely to increase the number of unsafe drivers in rental vehicles who seem to be a
large part of the problem in the first place?
It seems that as long as the tax payers of Hawaii county are funding Waipi'o road,they should have access to it, be it in a four wheel
drive vehicle or on foot.
I'm aware that the car rental companies provide a fair amount of tax revenue to the county and would frown on any bill giving
precedence to pedestrians over them,but in the end the rest of your constituency far out numbers those companies and should be
given serious consideration.
Rather than exempting only Waipi'o residents from the pedestrian ban the bill should,at the very least, exempt all Hawaii county
residents from the pedestrian ban and look into other ways of limiting traffic on Waipi'o hill.
Thank you for your time,please vote to keep Hawaii county healthy and Waipi'o road open to all county residents.
Respectfully,
Maris Gobins
Waipi'o valley resident landowner
Comm. op.
Ref.To: CU m61
1 Ref. ate DF f 2 3 M