Live, work, play, park in Kakaako

It’s interesting that one of the desirable amenities rising to the fore in the planning of Kakaako is parking.

Although the redevelopment vision puts the emphasis on “live, work, play,” multimodal transportation and walkable communities, the bottom line is that there will be cars. Many cars, most would agree.

So there’s a certain logic to the plan to develop a 5-acre site on the Ewa side of the University of Hawaii medical school to include a parking structure, among other facilities compatible with the UH activities.

Those who struggle to find parking in Kakaako must be hopeful that some of it will be open to the public.

Hawaii not adding to financial genius

The recession exposed that many struggle with financial knowledge across the country, and Hawaii has landed at the bottom among states for producing financially literate high school graduates, says a new study by Champlain College’s Center for Financial Literacy in Vermont.

With 10 other states given grades of F, Hawaii offers personal finance as an elective in certain schools. Nationally, the study says, 43 percent of adults nationally worry they don’t have enough rainy day savings for an emergency, 31 percent have no savings for retirement and 26 percent don’t pay their bills on time.

The study says Hawaii “does not require that local school districts teach those (personal finance) topics.” Authors of the study may not have been literate in one key detail: Hawaii has just one statewide school district.