Community, individual acts can best government’s work

Through the hotel window overlooking the Herengracht, one of Amsterdam’s famous canals, early morning came alive with a daily rustle from residents sweeping and scrubbing steps and sidewalks while business owners swabbed storefront windows and scoured the pavement before opening doors to customers.

In a matter of an hour or so, the district’s public areas were largely free of litter, gunk and grime.

For an American tourist accustomed to rackety city-authorized machines with circular brushes trundling late-night along curbs, the strictly do-it-yourself maintenance was a marvel.

Of course, people in Honolulu can’t be expected to take on street cleaning and patrol for litter. (Or can they?) Although many residents do tidy up in front of their houses, the majority rely on municipal services.

While government plays a necessary role in dealing with vital needs of a big city, a couple of Oahu neighborhoods are showing what community involvement can accomplish without the heavy hand of the system.

The projects are small in cost, simple in practice, but they save the lives of pedestrians and require only flags on sticks and canisters to hold them.

When pedestrians want to cross a busy road like Kaahele Street in the Newtown area, they grab a flag from a canister attached to a utility pole and wave it to catch the attention of drivers. After crossing, they deposit the flag in the canister on the other side of the street and go about their business.

Another flag-canister kit has been set up on the Pali Highway for a couple of years now, my colleague June Watanabe writes in Kokua Line. That one was started by Virginia Kawauchi, who was moved to act after an elderly woman was killed while crossing the highway.

Kawauchi did not know the woman, but took it upon herself to do something in hopes of preventing another death.

A few years back, the state Legislature considered a pedestrian-flag proposal but concerns about expense, liability and the specter of creating another bureaucracy scuttled the idea.

Those are genuine concerns. When the Newtown program started, thoughtless people began stealing the flags. (I mean, really.) The problem was mostly solved by printing the street name "Kaahele" on the flags to discourage thefts.

Kawauchi, who pays for the Pali flags herself, says the program costs are just about $5 a month.

Liability has yet to be tested. Though government officials don’t want to be tagged with lawsuits should a pedestrian be injured or killed despite waving a flag, it seems a waiver can be carved into legislation, or simple common sense can prevail.

On the mainland, some initiatives have failed, but others are thriving. In Salt Lake City, there was so much demand that an "adopt-a-crosswalk" strategy was developed, allowing businesses and individuals to set up and pay for flags and canisters and keep tabs on them. The Oahu sites, however, largely work because of community collaboration.

How effective the programs are can’t easily be determined. Yet if one pedestrian life is spared and one motorist made more mindful, they have gained success.