Traffic in Hawaii is RIDICULOUS!

[Cacia]

Ecerybody always bashes Oahu.

Oahu sucks

If you come here from Alaska or Montanna...you might not like it. Having said that, I don't really want to live there.(But I don't say it sucks) Sure, Maui and the Big Island are okay for some people. But if you have a need for a high powered career or an international city, well you might think again. (OR a military base) OR a real airport...

You want your kids to have a better chance of getting into a great university? You need Honolulu for the most part for the opportunities that are provided by a real population base--and traffic. Your child needs a pediatric subspecialist? Lots of luck on Maui or the Big Island--forget the other islands altogether.

I lived 15 years in SoCal, and traffic here is nothing compared to there. Sure, buying a house in Ewa Beach WILL put you in the worst traffic in the state. But everybody knows that. So, if you work conventional hours, that might not be so great.

Honolulu is a perfect place to stagger work hours. I'd like to see them try that.
Maybe the monorail will help? To come to Honolulu for the benefits of a population base, and then to knock it seems disingenuous. I mean...go live on a farm or a prairie if you don't want traffic. Get some goats and milk them. lol, I did that once and it is not all it is cracked up to be.
Milk at Costco is like two gallons for the price you all are quoting. I split vegtables or fruit with my neighbor if it is too much. Adapt.

I lived in St Thomas for 8 years and it was 20 cents a gallon to flush my toilet.
Economic realities of an island.

I think it is easy to knock a place that is not really your home. If it is your home, you get defensive.

 

[justleesa]

nicely said

 

[Lopaka]

I think it is easy to knock a place that is not really your home. If it is your home, you get defensive.

May also be the difference between vacationing somewhere, and living there. A carefree week where you have no obligations other than to run up the credit card balance is much different than having to drag out of bed every morning, albeit in a beautiful environment.

I maybe sense a touch of disillusionment in a few of these posts. Kind of reminds me of when I lived in San Diego. I could never understand how people could view it as such a vacation wonderland. To me it was a nonstop traffic jam with no parking anywhere. Hard to enjoy it when that is your mindset. I dislike the traffic here, but we try (and mostly succeed) to take it in stride and deal with it.

Now, if we could get rid of the practice of driving kids to school before work, the traffic would be far better. Anyone notice how much better traffic is when the kiddies are on vacation? Those two weeks around Christmas were heaven......

 

[Cacia]

Seriously, have them take the bus.

It's cheap, it's safe.

I do not sit in traffic to drive them anywhere, except up my 20% grade two mile hill at the end of the bus route.

If you miss the window on the bus thing...they will be "too cool" for it at 16.
Plus they learn so much dealing with all walks of life, on the bus. The Bus is a very good education---it's safe and virtually free.

They might squak a little. The trick is let them go where they want, when they want "if they take the bus". Bait them into it, and you are home free.

I have a fairly wealthy friend whose "protected" daughter went to Paris for a school trip. She came home early distraught...she couldn't handle the subway. The lady called to tell me that she used to not understand why I made my kids take the bus, (maybe she thought I was lazy, which I am) and she went on to say that her younger ones are now on the bus "speaking English, at least" so that they can be better at adapting to new situations.
My kids took the bus when they were very young and I followed them in the car, until they had it down. (at 8 y/0, in Santa Barbara)

Not to be preachy, but being mama wolf is kinda my thing.

One of my favorite sayings is "Our job is to help our kids to become adults, not to become better children".

I lived the 805 split, so I can relate... (Del Mar to UCSD)

The great news for you, if you are raising children here is that it is a GREAT place to raise kids, especially having come form SoCal. Less materialism, few abductions, multicultural...very conducive to the skills they need to develop.

And this is "on-topic" because fostering children being open to public transportation will help the traffic situation in the future. Not to mention your life will be better, and they benefit from the independence.

 

[ArcticDiver]

To stick with the OP comment about traffic and not stray off into other biases...I have to agree that Honolulu has some of the worst traffic congestion I have ever encountered in North America.

Traveling as I did this year I've had to sample traffic from Boston to the Keys to North Country to Oahu. Coming out of Boston it looked like a river of cars flowing. Driving the H1 it looked like a giant parking lot.

Then there was the well publicized Jaunary hold up on H1 while the paint dried.

It seems that locals have become so defensive about any criticism that they have blocked out hearing the real cry for traffic relief. I constantly heard the theme: "Yes the wages are relatively low, prices are high, traffic is terrible; that is the price you pay for living in paradise".

Man, paradise is more than just the climate.

 

[friscuba]

Lopaka mentioned the practice of diving kids to school. School traffic is a HUGE problem in Kona and I assume that holds true on all the islands. Kona is just fine traffic-wize when school is not in session. On days there are school you've got three hours of heavy traffic on either end of the day. Summer, spring and christmas break and in service days are a traffic blessing here.

As to traffic in general, it must be bad in SoCal... Kona traffic seems much worse than the traffic Houston, New Orleans (pre-flood) Orlando, Portland and Seattle that I've experienced the last few years. We've got a vaction rental at our house and we get people from sizeable cities like Dallas, Denver and such who complain about our traffic.

I've aways thought that Oahu's traffic really wasn't all that bad once you get outside of Waikiki until it took me over three hours to get to the UH/OSU football game from the Hilton this last December (only took 27 minutes to get back though).

 

[Lopaka]

Then there was the well publicized Jaunary hold up on H1 while the paint dried.

This was my sarcastic point about traffic engineers earlier in the thread: either there are none, or they are totally incompetent. Some of the traffic snafus like your example are almost hilarious, if you were not caught in it, and are clearly caused by idiocy. Guy I work with is fairly well acquainted with the political scene here, and he thinks it is mostly incompetence bred from an entrenched political establishment. Catherine's experience with the court system is another example of it.

 

[Wildcard]

On the otehr side of the coin, sort of, I also live in Homer Alaska. The preverbial end of the road and during summer I get stressed by the traffic there too. More tourists. Sorry, you can not park your motorhome in the middle of the road so you can take a picture of a frikkin eagle! My solution is to be away as much as I can while this invasion goes on. Cant do that here, the invasion is year round.

 

[Wildcard]

This was my sarcastic point about traffic engineers earlier in the thread: either there are none, or they are totally incompetent. Some of the traffic snafus like your example are almost hilarious, if you were not caught in it, and are clearly caused by idiocy. Guy I work with is fairly well acquainted with the political scene here, and he thinks it is mostly incompetence bred from an entrenched political establishment. Catherine's experience with the court system is another example of it.

Exactly! They picked a minor holiday to do the work. Why the heck didnt they do it on a weekend? Why not use fast dry paint? Second worse traffic jam ever.

 

[ArcticDiver]

On the otehr side of the coin, sort of, I also live in Homer Alaska. The preverbial end of the road and during summer I get stressed by the traffic there too. More tourists. Sorry, you can not park your motorhome in the middle of the road so you can take a picture of a frikkin eagle! My solution is to be away as much as I can while this invasion goes on. Cant do that here, the invasion is year round.

Man, for a guy in your business you sure do get stressed easily

Glad you said "sort of".