Editorial: Room for pedestrians on Oahu

Honolulu ought to be a great place to take a walk. The weather is mild, the streets aren’t too steep and it’s great exercise. It’s also free and nonpolluting. But in many neighborhoods, particularly in urban zones, the automobile rules.

Narrow, unshaded sidewalks, with barely enough room for two people to walk abreast, sit cramped next to roomy, multilane thoroughfares dedicated to fast-moving cars belching carbon monoxide. Crosswalks and intersections are particularly dangerous; many traffic-related pedestrian injuries and deaths occur in them. More and bigger vehicles on the road — those oversized trucks and SUVs — combined with an aging population can reduce the odds of a pedestrian surviving a collision.

So it’s heartening to see last week’s release of the draft Oahu Pedestrian Plan, part of the city’s effort to improve conditions for walkers on Oahu. The plan takes a detailed look at Honolulu’s pedestrian infrastructure, including maps and lists showing which streets are safety concerns, and where improvements are contemplated.

It also provides many suggestions for making the city more amenable to pedestrians. Smooth, wide walkways shaded by trees would make a walk to school, work or stores a more pleasant experience. Safer crosswalks and intersections would ease the anxiety of kupuna trying to get through traffic.

Of course, any properly ambitious plan to improve conditions for walkers will challenge the tyranny of our driving culture. Wider sidewalks mean narrower streets. Concepts such as bulb-outs, traffic humps, turn lane restrictions, lower speed limits and red-light cameras would force drivers to move more slowly and carefully.

So some pushback should be expected. Howls of protest greeted the installation of bulb-outs in Chinatown — simple curb extensions that expanded sidewalks and reduced the distance to cross the street.

Skepticism also greeted the state’s plan to install red-light cameras at intersections in urban Honolulu, a pilot program expected to start soon.

But the benefits could be worth it. Between Jan. 1 and June 23 of this year, there were 10 traffic-related pedestrian deaths in Hawaii, including nine on Oahu. And numbers in previous years have not been encouraging. Statewide, 44 pedestrians died in 2018; 37 in 2019; and 21 in 2020 (when traffic was lighter due to the pandemic). Reducing those numbers should be a top public policy goal.

The public can view the plan at www.honolulu.gov/completestreets/pedplan.html, and submit emailed comments to completestreets@honolulu.gov by Aug. 6.