At this point, stories about the impact of rail construction on daily traffic have almost reached a saturation point. We’ve heard it. We’ve sat through it. It sucks. Whatever. We’ve become almost numb.
But this is not a story about trying to navigate around rail construction — it’s about trying to get a good night’s sleep while it’s going on right outside your bedroom.
Jordan “Dobby” Dobison is about to turn 21. He’s a full-time student at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu, working toward a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis on marketing. Until recently, he worked full-time at a cellphone store. He also teaches dance class to kids and gigs as a dancer and rapper.
So he needs his sleep.
The rail construction on Farrington in Waipahu is just steps from his bedroom. “Sometimes it’s pretty intense. Sometimes it’s the sound of whatever is reversing. Sometimes it’s metal-on-metal contact.”
He lives in an apartment complex across from Waipahu Intermediate School. The contractors putting in the elevated track for HART have tried to keep the noise down during school hours near that campus and others out of respect for the kids’ learning and the teachers’ teaching. But at night when residents in the area are sleeping, it is very loud and, for Dobison, very close by.
“I can wake up at 1 in the morning to go to the restroom or whatever, and they’re still going at it,” he said.
Dobison came to Hawaii with his family when he was 17. His father recently retired from the military and he and Dobison’s mother moved back to Texas. Dobison got a place of his own with his girlfriend, who is also studying at UH-West Oahu. He rents a two-bedroom apartment for $1,300 a month. They moved in this August.
Not only is the construction noisy well into the night, it’s also incredibly bright. Dobison shot video from inside his bedroom that shows how the lights from the nighttime construction work shine into his house.
There are times the lights are so bright, they wake up in the middle of the night and think it’s morning.
Sometimes, the traffic snarls around the construction bother him, as when his girlfriend was running a fever and he wanted to get her home from school so she could rest. It took an extra 25 minutes from Kapolei to get through all the delays and detours to get back to their apartment.
But he’s not really complaining. It’s a bit more good-natured than that. It’s more like he’s amazed that this is happening, that this would happen to hard-working people who just want to do well in school and build a good life. When the construction finally stops, it’ll only be a matter of time before the train is running, and that will be a whole different kind of action right outside his window.
“I like the place where I live,” he said.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
