What is “sustainable transportation?” We wanted to find out, so we attended the forum

12/8/16 Yesterday afternoon at County of Maui Department of Planning’s conference room, the State Department of Transportation (HDOT) held a neighbor island “Sustainable Transportation Forum” We walked in with an open mind, unsure what to expect.

For our area HDOT is pretty much Pi’ilani Hwy, North Kihei Road and the Mokulele Hwy. Our most recent interaction with HDOT has coincidentally occurred at this same facility, attending a few of the new (2016) Maui Metropolitan Transportation Organization (MPO) meetings, SEE https://gokihei.org/?s=Maui+MPO&submit=Search . And last year several County Planning Commission meetings concerning HDOT’s failure to include sidewalks as they completely redid the Ohukai/Pi’ilani intersection in North Kihei SEE https://gokihei.org/?s=Ohukai+sidewalks%2C+planning+commission&submit=Search

This meeting, which was the sixth in a series, and the second neighbor island one, was moderated by Beth Osborne of Smart Growth America, https://smartgrowthamerica.org/about-us/our-staff/beth-osborne/ The room was full of a lot of familiar county government faces, DPW Director and Deputy, David G & Rowena; Planning Deputy Michelle, as well as numerous planners, County DOT (buses) Director, Don M.; a sitting Council member, Stacy and two councilors-elect, Kelly& Alika, each with two future EA’s . In the minority were guys from the private sector, including the dynamic duo from Maui Bicycle League, Saman and Lee; a professional bicyclist and a few guys from NPAC.

Oh yes KCA seemed to be only Community Association represented.

While we were only able to remain for first two hours of the meeting forum, we found it extremely inclusive, as everyone in room was offered opportunity for input and to ask questions. Note the three pages of “barriers to sustainable transportation” gathered from the participants.

KCA wishes to express a big mahalo to incoming S Maui Councilor Kelly King, a original member of the forum, for first suggesting they travel to the neighbor islands (Kauai preceded Maui) as well as alerting KCA about this meeting and the entire process.