After years of deferred maintenance of City and County roads on Oahu, frustrated drivers are demanding that city officials do something to fix the problem. Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who took office in January, promised that repairing Hawaii’s road systems would be one of his top priorities. Caldwell stated, “There’s so much aging infrastructure on this island that people are demanding and screaming (for it) to be fixed. There’s a lot of competing demands for this money.” The Mayor has proposed to spend $150 million to repave more then 300 lane-miles of damaged roads around Oahu in 2014.
There were several problems contributing to the island’s poor roads. First, for over two decades, government agencies raided the road repair fund to help balance the budget for other departments. From 1996 to 2003, over $143 million from the State highways Special Fund was diverted to the state’s general fund. Second, an increased population meant increased traffic, as well as larger and heavier vehicles on the roadways. The roads were simply not designed to handle that type of abuse and the budget was not sufficient to make the necessary changes.
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 3-25-2013, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, Realtor®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
www.myhawaiidreamhome.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, Realtor®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
www.myhawaiidreamhome.com
