Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.
Edward J. Burns, the State Director of Taxation, differs with his brother, the Governor, on one big point.
The Governor says traffic congestion is mostly an "annoyance." Edward Burns believes traffic is the most serious problem on Oahu today.
Many motorists probably agree with the latter opinion. But unlike some City and State officials, the motorist is not looking forward to just a better tomorrow in regard to roads. He wants something done to move the cars in front of him today.
For example, Glenn Clark and other motorists from Kaneohe say they have been waiting for the State’s long-promised widening of the two lane stretch of Kamehameha Highway from Castle Junction to Kaneohe for more than 11 years.
But Clark says he isn’t holding his breath any longer. Instead he just wishes the State would try something different to get traffic onto the Pali from Kam Highway a little faster today.
"Sometimes the single lane of traffic is backed up all the way to the Memorial Park a mile away," Clark complains.
"All the State would have to do is open another lane on the side where the road turns up to the Pali," he says. "There’s lots of room. It would help a lot."
Suggestions phoned in to this reporter during the past week have ranged all the way from banning the importation of any more automobiles into the State to starting a government-sponsored method of getting more commuters to "double up" in car pools.
"When I drive to school in the morning," a student motorist noted, "all I see is one man behind the wheel–and no one else in any of the cars. Why don’t people drive to work together?"
Other motorists are even more disgruntled over the traffic jams caused by parents driving their children to school in the morning and picking them up again in the afternoon.
"What’s the matter with the kids nowadays? We used to walk to school when I was a kid. Can’t Mommy let her little darlings walk to school anymore?" a Punahou area motorist asks.
