Deep into his lengthy State of the City speech this week, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi offered some welcome love for the West Side, addressing two of the area’s most contentious issues: traffic and the Waimanalo Gulch landfill.

“This year, we’ll kick off a project to install new traffic cameras and connected traffic signals from Kapolei all the way to Makaha,” Blangiardi said.

That’s a long overdue improvement; a look at the city’s traffic camera map shows concentrations of cameras on major thoroughfares — except, curiously, Farrington Highway, the only road in and out of the Leeward Coast, where a single accident can snarl traffic for miles.

Publicly accessible camera feeds have become an essential tool to quickly alert the news media and local residents about trouble on the roadways. This is particularly an issue on the Leeward Coast, where plans for establishing a proper Farrington Highway bypass route have repeatedly been proposed, discussed and shelved.

Perhaps the mayor could find a way to make progress on this issue, too.

Blangiardi also offered a bonus: As part of the traffic camera project, his IT team will install free WiFi access at Waianae Coast parks and beach parks. It remains to be seen how robust the service will be, but it could help those who can’t afford to buy internet access or cellphone high-speed data plans. The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs does have a few Leeward Coast hotspots offering one hour of free WiFi service per device per day; surely, the city can do more.

A replacement for the Waimanalo Gulch landfill in Kapolei, however, will be a tougher nut to crack.

“Under my watch, the site of the next landfill for the City and County of Honolulu will not be on the Waianae Coast. Let me repeat that: not on the Waianae Coast,” Blangiardi promised.

He also told the Board of Water Supply’s manager, Ernie Lau, that it wouldn’t be over the aquifer — “if I have my way.”

These will be hard commitments to keep; prior city administrations have struggled to no avail to find an acceptable replacement for Waimanalo Gulch, which is mandated to close in 2028. The city will have to consider out-of-the-box options, such as negotiating for military land, or endure NIMBY backlash in another Oahu neighborhood. But the promise has been made, and now the promise must be kept.