Question: What about the bikeway on South Street? One-way or two-way?
Answer: It depends where on South Street you are riding. There is a two-way protected bike lane on South Street from King to Pohukaina streets, on the Ewa side of the street. There are one-way bike lanes on South Street from Pohukaina Street to Ala Moana Boulevard, one on each side of the street.
You can see the design of the South Street Bikeway Project and find other information about bicycling safely on Oahu at honolulu.gov/bicycle, the website for the city’s Bicycle Program.
We highlight this information because we’ve heard recently from bicyclists who said wrong-way riders collided with them on one-way bike lanes in Kailua and Honolulu. The bike lanes they mentioned are well marked by universally understood symbols (directional arrows), so there doesn’t seem to be much excuse for the wrong-way riders’ dangerous inattention.
Sweetheart swindle
Thursday’s column about the rise in romance scams (808ne.ws/214kline) brought responses from readers who had avoided being conned and wanted to warn others. Here’s more, including about a “celebrity” twist:
>> That was “a very timely tip on Valentine’s Day about romance scams. I’d written a positive review on a movie I’d enjoyed on their Twitter feed and a few days later received a private message tweet from the lead actor saying ‘hello fan,’ so I answered. Soon it was clear it was an impersonator, so I decided to write the real actor, alerting him to the imposter, and play along to keep it active. I figured a ‘well known actor’ couldn’t ask for money, and it was fun to pretend — the impersonator even liked a few of my tweets, using the actor’s name.
“It went on a little while, simple questions went unanswered, and I was about to stop when he mentioned his ‘foundation’ to help needy and homeless but that he was keeping it ‘anonymous’ from the press. Now I knew the scam. I’m not foolish enough to send money and have stopped responding, but it’s a twist on the romance scam. I’d originally thought he was just some lonely guy impersonating someone famous or catfishing. Now I know it’s far more. … It’s easy to see how someone with stars in their eyes could be sucked in even more than by a person just faking it in general. As you said, love is a powerful emotion.” — Downtown reader
>> Regarding the relationship scams, “people should know this isn’t only about people who are out looking for love. My mom has been a widow for years. … She got a call from a guy who said he knew her in high school and always had a crush on her. She didn’t remember him, but was flattered. … We warned her it was going to be a scam, and sure enough eventually he asked her for money. She told him she didn’t have any, and that was the end of her ‘old friend.’ Senior citizens, beware.” — A reader
Mahalo to these readers and others for sharing their experiences. The National Consumers League says its data suggests that scams of all types (not limited to romance and friendship cons) are more aggressively targeting older adults. More than 1 in 5 of all complaints received at Fraud.org in 2018 came from someone over 65, a nearly 20 percent increase from the year before, the advocacy group said.
Mahalo
A huge mahalo to the kind family who helped me when I fell in Manoa. It was raining, and these good Samaritans drove me to my car and even offered to take me to the ER if I couldn’t drive myself. I ended up having surgery, but all I thought of was how touched and grateful I was for the aloha this family extended to me in my time of dire need. God bless them! — S.K.
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
