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Car sharing services — enabled by a new ordinance Mayor Kirk Caldwell just signed — should help Honolulu transition into a brave new world of unconventional commuting.
The idea is supported by companies that can get in on the ground floor of an industry new to Hawaii. It’s also meant to help rail riders get to errands off that particular beaten track.
The measure sets aside 50 reserved parking stalls and 175 decals each year enabling parking in unreserved on- and off-street parking stalls. That won’t please veterans of the downtown parking wars.
But traffic in this town is so bad (remember last week’s various congestion woes?), we do have to throw every possible solution at it.
More sewage spills a threat to avoid
When it rains, it pours. And unfortunately for Oahu, it also overflows.
In August, nine sewage spills — five of them related to heavy rains — poured some 1.7 million gallons of sewage into recreational waters around Oahu, the most in a single month since 2010. Those “BEACH CLOSED” signs, especially at beaches at and near Waikiki, made international news; the most-visible, 500,000-gallon spill prompted a “mea culpa” from city officials on miscommunication that led to the overflow. But other spills last month — including 1 million gallons of treated but not-disinfected sewage near Sandy Beach from a privately run plant — should prompt urgent reviews to avoid repeats.
After all, hurricane season runs for two more months, and we can ill afford to have another bad month of spillage.