Question: When will the CORP dog park reopen? It’s been well over a month since the city closed it to restore the grass, which appears to be fine now. Many of us rely on this dog park for social activity, not only for our dogs, but also for ourselves, and we are eager to reconnect.
Answer: The off-leash dog park at Patsy T. Mink Central O‘ahu Regional Park in Waipio is scheduled to reopen July 31, and park staff are working to establish an Adopt-a-Park agreement with community members for future maintenance, according to Honolulu’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
You are one of several readers seeking updates about this popular dog park, which Parks and Rec closed for repairs June 7 after what it described then as vandalism that killed the grass. Dog owners disputed that description, saying that if someone sprayed a vinegar solution on the grounds — which is what the city said had apparently happened — it was done without malice, meant to kill weeds in an area the city should have maintained. Since then, park staff have connected with park users about moving forward cooperatively, as indicated in a DPR statement Thursday that referred to damage caused by the “unauthorized use of an organic herbicide” rather than vandalism by vinegar.
“Like most issues in life, I believe what happened at this dog park can ultimately be boiled down to a miscommunication,” DPR spokesperson Nate Serota said in a news release. “This closure gave us the opportunity to have an open discussion with the dog park users, and establish an amicable path moving forward. We appreciate the patience of the community while they waited for the dog park to be revitalized, and really encourage any community group or volunteer to consider Adopt-a-Park as an excellent avenue to establish a relationship and open line of communication with DPR. That way the passion and good intentions of park users can be steered toward the shared goal of keeping these treasured public spaces in good working order.”
For details about DPR’s Adopt-a-Park program, see bit.ly/parkvolunteers
When it closed, Serota said the dog park would be fertilized, treated with herbicide and re-sodded in some areas; the irrigation system also was to be inspected.
Q: Regarding new signs that show how often drivers stop for pedestrians (808ne.ws/720kline), as someone who doesn’t own a car and gets around Honolulu on TheBus and by foot, I would swear those percentages are too high — no one ever stops for me crossing University Avenue!
A: It makes sense that you perceive drivers as being less courteous than the signs indicate, because the compliance percentages were derived from traffic studies that hewed strictly to state law, which says that a vehicle must stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk when the person is “upon the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling” or when the pedestrian is “approaching the vehicle so closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger.” In other words, Honolulu Department of Transportation Services staff who collected this compliance data weren’t counting cars that passed before the pedestrian had a foot in the crosswalk. Moreover, they only counted cars on the same side of the road as the pedestrian.
“People’s perception of yielding is going to be even worse than what we are measuring, because (in the observed, staged crossings) we are waiting until they have a foot in the street and measuring only cars on that side of the intersection. If we were counting people standing on the curb ready and waiting to cross, the yield rate would be even lower,” said Daniel Alexander, project manager for Oahu Vision Zero, the DTS traffic safety program conducting the studies and updating the signs, which have been posted at nine intersections on Oahu.
At the Moiliili intersection you mentioned, on University Avenue near Kuilei Street, 36% of drivers stopped for crossing pedestrians.
To be clear, HRS 291C-72 also says “no pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is impossible for the driver to yield.”
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
