Oh, here's a news flash:
The most heavily traveled areas on
Kauai are from the Kukui Grove Shopping Center to the Lihue Airport,
and from Wailua to Kapaa.
Yup, Kauai County spent good money
digging up that closely guarded secret, evident only to those who
actually creep through that tangled traffic.
There's more:
The study found that there are too many
cars on the road.
Ya don't say?
And still more:
The goal by 2035, when it comes to
transit, is to increase transit trips from today’s 1 percent of
travel to 4 percent, and to update fare collection technology and
structures.
So the county wants to impose a ½
percent GET surcharge, which would generate $5 million annually for
the bus system over the next 10 years, with the lofty goal of a 3
percent increase in ridership. Wow.
Meanwhile, as tourism continues to
expand, the increase in rental car traffic will easily offset those
paltry gains. Because Council Chair Mel Rapozo is right when he says
visitors want cars because they want to explore. After all, aren't we
now being marketed as “Island of Discovery?”
Hello.... Got some major disconnects
going on here.
Like Councilman Gary Hooser's comments
to The Garden Island on the county's proposed lobbyist registration
bill:
"I am concerned about Honolulu lobbyists
and these guys with big budgets behind them that go all over the
state lobbying."
Oh, but it's no problem when Kauai
lobbyists, like Hooser, go all over the state.
There's more:
“Why would a lobbyist give a gift to
us unless it was to reward or influence? Whether it’s a lunch or a
trip, a person paid to influence government shouldn’t give gifts to
elected officials."
Yeah, so tell us again, Gary, why you
accepted that free trip to Switzerland, and why your HAPA groups
takes money from Center for Food Safety and its registered lobbyists.
And still more:
“I’d prefer you couldn’t be a
lobbyist and be on any commission."
But being a lobbyist and a Councilman – well, that's A-OK, in Gary's view.
Meanwhile Gary's HAPA has launched an
on-line petition “demanding” — you can never ask politely if
you're an anti, you must always “demand,” like you're fricking
entitled to get exactly what you want this instant and screw everyone else —
that “Our Leaders Take Action to Protect Hawai`i from Pesticides
Now!”
Why now? you might ask.
Well, because they already lost big on
one bill at the Lege, prompting them to unleash a vicious attack on
Rep. Clift Tsuji of the Big Island. And now the Kauai Joint Fact
Finding Group on pesticides is preparing to —finally — release its report on
March 10.
So Gary and his colleagues at Center
for Food Safety and Earthjustice are ramping up their coordinated
efforts to make big hay while the Legislature is still in session.
Of course, they might run into a bit of
resistance with this particular “demand,” which oversteps, even
for them:
Require pesticide free 'protection
zones' around all schools, hospitals, and homes.
So no more ant spray, cockroach traps,
weed killer, flea control, worming medication, termite control....
I love watching these guys shoot
themselves in the foot.
Posts
36 comments:
Technically it's not a "3% increase", it's a "3 percentage point" increase, which translates to a "300% increase". 1 out of 100 is 1%, 4% would be 4/100, which is a four-fold increase. Sounds a lot better than it is due to the small starting numbers, but it is definitely more than a 3% increase, which would be 1.03/100.
Yukimura's bike path is a great example of Kauai's biggest failure. The bike path is a luxury item used for recreation. The increase in bus service and raising the GE tax in not going to work. KCC students have to help fund the Kauai bus each and every semester and still 99.9% of the students don't ride the bus.
This notion that raising the tax to support a bus system that is rarely used by the working class is absurd.
I propose to bring back the car rental cap at the airports. Hotels and the county tourism must invest in shuttle services to alleviate the traffic congestion. Every shuttle could take 20-30 cars off the road during times that the roads are overfilled with cars from rental companies going back to the airport.
Car rental companies could have sites around the VDA areas but they also have to have daily caps.
This works in several ways: The traffic to VDA's and from the airport will be reduced with a car rental cap at the airport. Shuttles provide mass transportation to the VDA areas reducing traffic congestion. Workers from the car rental areas will be able to work closer to home and also near VDA's so this also reduces traffic congestion.
The cruise ship days could also use the same concept to reduce traffic congestion.
This would save everyone from a tax increase that does not alleviate traffic congestion.
This plan is free and doesn't take consultants or huge studies to do.
This will save the citizens of Kauai and its visitors from a unnecessary tax increase.
This plan should have been implemented 8 years ago when it was suggested.
Yukimura's only plan that has worked in over 30 years in office is the farmers market.
That's all folks.
Basically with this GE tax increase on Kauai, the politicians are saying we want more of your money because we the council knows how to spend your money better than you do.
This Mayor and council has had an operating budget of nearly $200 million each and every year and what have they done?
What do they have to show for?
Nothing but a few bus stop shelters built and a new Kilauea gym roof. All other things like, solid waste site, drug rehab center and whatever false promises they've been promising to build and fix for the last 8 years have been wasted on a budget to satisfy illegally hiring of family and friends.
1500 cars goes to the county round building each day they show up to collect the county welfare check. Why not reduce non essential county personnel to alleviate the traffic. So that should take about 750 wasted county welfare checks off the road and out if they budget so they could use that money to pay for bike paths, revitalizing urban dense areas (lol), and a world class bus system just like the world class camp grounds on Kauai (lmfao).
Yukimura and Cock's GE tax increase is a joke. Why don't they go and smoke weed with the kawakami's and play monopoly.
Conquerors of Kauai. ha ha ha ha
Can we add a usage tax to rental cars? Use that money to run bus system.
Could we add a usage tax to the rental cars? Use that money to run bus system
Re County comment
"The study found that there are too many cars on the road. "
The study should say, " the study found that there are too few roads on Kauai."
The transportation engineering plan needs to be revisited before any GET increase. We need more ( and better) roads. It's a capacity issue for the cars that won't be traded for bikes, walking or the bus at the rates the county hopes for.
Joanne and her money wasting boondoggle. I don;'t see her riding the bus. No her double dipping means she drives an electric car and recharges it at the county expense. Another useless affectation.
If the bus is so great, get rid of these mainland consulting leeches and make them put their own money in it.
An easy way to clean up a portion of that corridor is to synchronize the Kukui Grove to Puhi lights. They are terribly out of time. That results is the obscene backups, particular on the outside East lane. Simple to fix. synchronize all lights so they green together. Make the East-West traffic green go 5-9 seconds more than current. Drop all demand changes to that stretch only.
Doesn't this State have real traffic engineers? Look how Kalakaua on Oahu flows. A bit longer, but a fine example how a stretch can be coordinated.
Tax increase equals more County workers.
85 percent (at least) of all County/State money is for payroll and bennies. Just a smidgen goes to hard assets.
Not bad, extort more taxes, hire more people.
Prediction, the Tax Bill will pass. Mel will mumble, but he will crumble. He knows that even tho' Derek's Daddy wants to be a big-time dope dealer, Derrick will still be elected Mayor and Mel will slither into Nadine's seat.
No one who blew a wad of cash on the remake of Hardy and Eiwa Streets that wound up looking like they escaped from a pinball machine should get their hands on .5% of the GET under any conditions. The only public benefit that project delivered was nice concrete driveway aprons to the folks who live on Hardy. And Eiwa, looking like a war-torn Beirut side street, defies common sense.
Progressive light intersection. It's like traveling 35 mph from one end to the other. Without any interruptions, you should get through. On Kauai, it is like a horse race. Everyone jocking for position, cutting in front of slower cars, zigging and sagging.
So you have a serious Dengue outbreak caused by mosquitos, and you want to prohibit spraying for 200 feet around schools. The number is actually an odd one. The recommendation by us health officials is to actually spray up to 200 yards around homes of those who come down with dengue. So let's really propagate the disease, among children? Wouldn't that be a war crime? Or at least rate a call to the UN as a human rights violation.
5:25 the GET will not pass, creating drama is haole style
Don't like the traffic? Ride the bus. Carpool. What are we? Los Angeles?
I guess they didn't come into Lihue from the west side in the morning or leave Lihue to go to the west side in the afternoon.
Aloha
I believe that a lot of us think that the County owns the state highways.
They don't.
All of the really big problems are on the state highways, except for Puhi Road.
The .5% is to take of the County roads.
It will not fix the traffic problem.
The pot holes around the old Coco Palms is horrible.
The state road in Hanapepe is bad.
I can go on and on but that is the State's problem.
I don't know what is the solution but the state does need to fix a lot of our roads
Mahalo
By the time a new road gets approved anywhere, it will be just in time to build another one. And 6:01 is right, it's the state highways that are jammed with cars, not county roads. But Glen Mickens won't get on TV bugging the state.
What has Kouchi, kawakami, and tokioka done for Kauai at the state level either than pass a bill that would allow daddy the wacky tabacky millyun dollar monopoly drug trade?
That's one way to relieve traffic. Get everyone so stoned that they can't drive and are forced to catch a bus. "Dude, you missed your stop!"
8:20 and all you jealous people, get off of Kawakami's daddy's drug trade. The family was in business for a long time, they are making money work for their money, creating business to make more business opportunity for the family. this is just another business deal that can make this business man some money.
that's what it is. Freaking business! If I was you, I'd go and see him, to see if you could invest in his drug business. Because, if you look at the model in Colorado, it's so, profitable, it's not even funny on how fast the money will flow.
Only smart business people would see this amazing opportunity. Ethical! it's one woman / man's opinion. but it's here to stay. and it's the business people that are trying to take full advantage of this financial opportunity.
Next note: Ron, Derek, and Jimmy. At least these state people are trusted people that the majority of voters on Kauai Can trust to represent Kauai. at least that's what the voters voted on. For sure, you either didn't vote or you voted for / liked the other candidate that didn't get in.
don't like it. Pony up to the political arena and give it a shot.
Beirut side streets have bus stops and parks? Those homeless folks look like they're having a peaceful time. I guess war is different where you come from.
Those 3 are the dirtiest of the dirty. Ask anybody who knows the ins and outs of Kauai's political games and their family connections.
Don't front like anybody can trust these slime balls.
If you don't know then you have to ask the old timers.
They know how crooked these jokers and their families are.
What have they done for Kauai?
The less than 2 mile revitalization of Rice street, to cost something like $7+ million per mile , is being pushed for one reason only. Grove Farm's mega development project. Watch.
That's money revolving on kauai. Too bad u not in that mix of dirty money.
11:51 pm. I think when we assume that Rice St. Revitalization moneys are all going to be circulating around Kauai so regardless of whether or not its needed for pedestrians and bicyclists is not accurate. Companies like Earthworks, Layton, etc. are all mainland owned and certainly a lot of profit will go from Kauai taxpayers to the mainland. That being said, are pedestrians and bycycliists on Rice Street in danger? Why are we wasting millions on this? Rice St. functions fine, the only problems are on-street parking that is currentliy allowed and homeless pedestrians and bycycliists that got imported here from the mainland. These are not good reasons to spend $13 million on redo-ing Rice St.
7:20 a.m., I'm 11:51 p.m.
Ok, so let's remove the crap we just created and go back to the way it used to be. which was way better then what it is now.
Next Kauai County project! put it back to the way it was.
Money under the bridge, and money don't swim up stream. Unless it's salmon money. after so many years at sea, it'll come back to spawn.
"spend" the word is "spent" Fadush! toilet just flushed with the $13 million.
Grove farm project! tell them stop! put it back to the way it was! Freaking fat chance. But it's ok, keep bitching and moaning! something has got to happen! Really!
I'm adapting to looking through the trees, landmines in the middle of the street, but I'm adapting and moving on with my life.
How about you. Get over it, and move on.
Yes, the companies are mainland based, but I see my friends and locals all worked on the project.
Just spoke to a homeless this morning, local person. he's adapting and making due with what he has. not much, but he has to do what he has to do.
It's a prime example to why the county of Kauai is a failure.
6:08 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. call them what you want. here's how you can get rid of them. Put your name in for their positions, run your election and get voted in.
Next, build your alliance with your group (that you can trust), usually business people who has a business vision to help you get thing done.
build your reputation as a trusted public servant so you can get re-elected and build more alliances with more groups (clicks).
Then after 30 years in office. I'll come back with in this blog and call you a dirty pig. because now, you've got political power and the majority of the voting public built their trust in you.
Get started future PIGS!!!
I've done more than you and your dirty pigs have done on Kauai and that's backro deals included.
I've done more than any council member or that mayor has done on Kauai than you all put together for the last 50 years.
You gudots ain't shit. I own you hooh ass tricks.
You stink beluts ain't on my level.
8:26 why plow money into Rice Street if the goal is to benefit a development miles away? Property on both sides of Rice Street are already subdivided and owned by numerous individuals and businesses. How would a Grove Farm development benefit?
Check out the plan. Condos, hotels, convention center, commercial, residential, multi family, apartments, the whole spectrum. Coming to GF vacant land east of the airport road and mauka of Kapule. All those new people need a place to walk, talk and ride their bikes. Otherwise like you said, why plow money into Rice street ?
Check out the plan. Condos, hotels, convention center, commercial, residential, multi family, apartments, the whole spectrum. Coming to GF vacant land east of the airport road and mauka of Kapule. All those new people need a place to walk, talk and ride their bikes. Otherwise like you said, why plow money into Rice street ?
not new people. YUPPIES
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