It’s a small, small island with a great big problem

In 2008 the happiest ride in the “Happiest Place on Earth” was shut down for renovations. The canals that carry visitors through Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” were made deeper because riders had gotten heavier over the years and there were so many more chubby people weighing down those poor little white boats.

Accommodating more and bigger is hard enough at landlocked Disneyland. On an island surrounded by water and limited by local government’s ability to pay for innovative solutions, packing in more people is the biggest challenge Hawaii currently faces.

Of course, it’s been the biggest challenge for quite a while now.

Flying in additional tourists affects more than hotel rooms or the vacation rentals. Those added people affect roads. They affect sewers. They take up the parking spaces. The effects are pervasive, particularly on smaller islands. It’s all the sunscreened bodies milking up the nearshore waters. It’s quiet places becoming jam-packed like a rowdy concert.

Ten years ago, then-Kauai Mayor Bryan Baptiste introduced a bill to ban “big-box” stores on Kauai. This would not have affected Walmart, which was already on the island. It was meant to stave off Super Walmart and other huge stores and to help locally owned stores stay in business. It was an attempt to manage scale.

In hindsight it seems so quaint. Walmart and Costco have become staples on Kauai, as familiar and dear as old dusty mom-and-pops. Residents love the convenience and the wide range of national brands. A bigger box would be an even better box.

Meanwhile, upscale shops at resort areas are fashioned to look like local stores, with all the rustic charm, high prices and limited inventory minus the red dirt and flies.

Hawaii is becoming a tourist attraction where artifacts of “local” or “Hawaiian” life are fetchingly presented to an ever-growing queue of tourists. It’s become “It’s a Small Island” with a never-ending line of tourists eager to see staged representations of paradise.

But who is “imagineering” the need for greater capacity?

Now United Airlines is increasing its number of direct flights to the neighbor islands in an attempt to become the top carrier between Hawaii and the mainland.

Two daily flights from L.A. to Lihue instead of one.

Two daily flights from San Francisco to Lihue instead of one.

Daily flights to Lihue from Denver year-round instead of just seasonally.

Where are all of those people going to go? Where will they stay? What will their vacation experience be like if they are stuck in traffic with the rest of us, snorkeling over dying reefs, fighting for parking at trailheads and going to Walmart to experience an authentic local shopping experience?

Hawaii is limited by land area and bound by the sea that surrounds us. It is limited by its capacity to support great numbers of people. It is also limited by the vision of local leadership and the ability for anyone to admit that too much is too much.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.