Waipio Valley
Road report flawed
The report, “Preliminary Geotechnical Engineering Evaluation Waipio Valley Road” that drove Mayor Mitch Roth to close Waipio Valley Road is flawed. The numbers that describe a 1:18,000 risk to pedestrians walking into the valley are so heinously massaged to arrive at that number that it brings into question the entire report and the mayor’s decision.
The report’s walking speed of 1.0 mph (1.6 km/h) is approximately one third published average walking speed. The ITE publication, Design and Safety of Pedestrian Facilities cites walking speeds up to 2.4 m/s or 8.6 km/h.
Increasing walking speed to 4.3 km/h decreased risk by an order of magnitude to over 1:100,000. Conversely, vehicle speed is artificially fast at 10 mph or 16 km/h. Decreasing vehicle speed just 4 km/h to 12kph calculates to equal risk in the 1/90,000 range. Speed in the report is heavily weighted and being manipulated to overstate risk.
In the report the probability of death to pedestrian from a rock strike is 100% and 30% to a person in a vehicle. The lava rocks that hit individuals in the tour boat did not kill at 100%. Authors take an out with following: “Although we believe these values are reasonable, they are largely subjective.” A pedestrian has 50/50 chance of surviving a rock strike walking at 4.3 km/h increases calculated risk another order of magnitude above 1:200,000.
Quick back of the envelope calculations demonstrates that the methodology and analysis that the County accepted from the contractor is unsound. That Hawaii County DPW engineers accepted the Geotechnical Evaluation as written is troubling because that is not being good stewards of public funds. An emergency order to shut down this road based on this risk evaluation is so unreasonable that it is arbitrary and capricious. It is obviously exclusionary and elitist.
William Rowley
Kailua-0Kona
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Slap, laugh, but help
Thank God the Will Smith slap was between the same race and gender. It led to millions of people laughing at the subsequent jokes and memes.
If it had occurred between different races and/or genders, we would still be raging about it with all the hate we could muster.
Simply, it was a comedian telling a joke in poor taste under pressure to shock and a man making a poor quick violent judgement under pressure from his wife’s glare. Both not a good sign for our society.
But while we were laughing and googling for more slap jokes and memes (I know I did), people were still dying in Ukraine and devastating real suffering still engulfed so much of the world. Here’s an idea: Instead of looking for laughs on the internet; use it to donate to the Red Cross or something. We had our fun. Help someone have life.
Leighton Loo
Mililani, Oahu
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