Steve Pause News Today

What began as an effort to reduce bike traffic on specific West Hawaii roads has become a proposed series of regulations upon bike tour operators throughout the Big Island.

One week after the Hawaii County Council shot down $1 million in state funds to investigate alternate traffic routes into Puna, a new council bill is trying to run it back.

The bill would have accepted and added into the County’s budget $1 million from the state, which Puna state Rep. Greggor Ilagan was able to get allocated as a line item in the state budget in 2021, and another $500,000 from County coffers for the Hawai‘i County Department of Public Works to do the study.

There is no infrastructure work planned at this time. Bill 107 only would put funds into the County budget for the study, which would be conducted to find an alternate route in and out of Puna to Hilo below Highway 130.

Hawaiian geese are returning to the Keaukaha coastline on the Big Island, but now they have to deal with traffic, including speeding vehicles, which has had some deadly consequences for the endangered birds.

Public Works Director Steve Pause said that “the Department has been working for some time to develop alternative means and methods to achieve maintenance of County infrastructure without the reliance on chemical herbicides.”

West Hawai’i residents attended Hawai’i County Mayor Mitch Roth’s new town hall series, “Sustainable Horizons: Mayor Roth’s Community Impact Check-in,” at the Rodney Yano Memorial Hall in Captain Cook Tuesday.