Complete Streets an idea we need now

It does not bode well that the department chairman of civil/environmental engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is stuck in the transportation mindset of the mid-1900s (“It’s just another excuse for government to spend,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, June 3). Leadership at this level should be progressive and open to innovation and change. This is clearly not the case with Panos Prevedouros.

Streets make up more public open space than parks in most urban environments. People need to get places and these open corridors we call streets are the means we use to do so.

Complete Streets, when implemented through carefully thought-out planning and design, allows for safer, cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing streets that consider all modes of transportation. They also enliven the urban fabric, bringing increased pedestrian presence to the streets and adjacent businesses, thus increasing revenues to those businesses.

There is nothing wrong with adding trees, wider sidewalks, bike lanes, roundabouts/traffic circles, parklets and other facets of Complete Streets to our urban centers. In fact, there is everything right about it, and the time is now.

Kevin Butterbaugh

Kailua

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Unemployment rate hides disturbing data

Your editorial accurately noted that Hawaii’s exceptionally low unemployment rate masks concerns about the prevalence of long-term joblessness in Hawaii (“Focus job training on the homeless,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, June 5).

Unfortunately, the over-simplistic “unemployment rate” the Bureau of Labor Statistics widely distributes masks other disturbing trends as well, such as the increasing dependence on part-time jobs, and the number of people working full-time in jobs that do not provide a living wage.

The BLS recognizes this, and computes a number of labor statistics for the nation as a whole that give a truer picture of what workers are truly experiencing in the economy (www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm).

The “Labor Underutilization Rate” picks up the number of part-time workers unable to find full-time jobs as well as those suffering from long-term unemployment. The nation’s official unemployment rate of 3.8 percent for May is connected to a labor underutilization rate of 7.8 percent.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what Hawaii’s 2 percent day unemployment rate translates to as a labor underutilization rate? Shouldn’t policy- makers have this information as they do their work?

Barbara Poole-Street, Ph.D.

Professor emiteritus of economics

Chaminade University

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Italian fascists aren’t ‘populists’

I was a little angry when the news reported that the right-wing “populists” won Italy’s election. Not just because they won, but because the media say “populist” instead of “fascist.”

According to Merriam-Webster online, populism represents the common people. Fascism, on the other hand, “exalts nation and often race above the individual and stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.”

Hmm … Does that ring a bell?

Regina Gregory

Makiki

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We don’t need new Kaena Point radar

Kaena Point has for many years been one of my favorite places to hike to. But within a few years, according to the Star-Advertiser, those of us who pass Kuaokala Ridge may look up and see nothing less than a “sophisticated radar to track North Korean missiles and better protect Hawaii” (“Kaena Point ridge could see new missile defense radar,” Star-Advertiser, June 1).

Why, we might ask, would such a costly installation “better protect” us?

After all, North Korea’s regime has never posed a genuine nuclear threat to Hawaii, or any other place in the U.S. The rulers in Pyongyang know only too well that use of nukes would be suicidal.

If nuclear war does one day destroy Hawaii, it will most likely be in the midst of a U.S. war with China or Russia, probably as a result of miscalculations after an incident with the Chinese in the South China Sea, or in the Middle East with Russia.

If we want to “better protect” Hawaii, we need to actively promote peaceful alternatives to the current aggressive military buildup and explosive war of words coming out of Washington.

Noel Kent

Manoa

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Story choices show distaste for Trump

Every reader of Star-Advertiser would have already known for quite some time of the paper’s antipathy toward President Donald Trump.

The choice of news sources, news articles and commentaries display the very obvious distaste or antagonism toward the current administration.

Just look at the headline and news report by the Associated Press on June 2: “Trump’s tweet on jobs report raises questions.”

The most important part of the news — the new milestones reached on the number of jobs created and the very low unemployment rate — was buried among the negative comments regarding Trump’s tweets, from people who worked under former presidents.

The paper could have chosen a New York Times article that had a more positive tone about the same subject and, unlike the AP article, described the economy as “roaring” and only spent a paragraph on the tweeting by the president.

Florencia Aczon Ranchez

Ewa Beach