The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1892-02-22
a Little About Street Widenine

correspondents.
a Little AbOut Street Widening.
Mr.. EDITOR SIR: In your is
sue of 18th instant, you publish a
leading article with the above
heading, in which you advocate
the widening of the Waikiki road
and Nuuanu Avenue, and give it
as your opinion that " the value of
property is, in most cases, much
improved by street widening"
| would like to be allowed to
state that l believe the general
advocacy of street widening is
mistake. There may, doubtless,
be some streets the widening of
which is imperative, by reason of
the inconvenience to traffic and
the liability of accident which lack
of sufficient width involves; but,
without doubt, the policy of keep
ing thoroughfares in their existing
width in good condition is Of far
greater Importance than is the
widening of them.
When our treasury is OVERLOOKING
with coin, and when we have
Road Supervisor who knows how
to make a road, and to keep it in
repair when it is made, it will be
time enough to talk of making
boulevards and fancy drives but,
until that time arrives, let us rest
content with the width of our
roads.
1t is Individually better to have q
frst-class narrow road than a tenth
rate wide one and, instead of
spending time and money on the
widening of streets, the Govern
ment would keep the streets they
have in good condition the public
would be better pleased.
AS q lamentable example of the
folly of unnecessary street widen
ing we have only to look at Bere-
tania street. If this street had
been left as it was, so far as its
width was concerned, if that miser
able ballast track had been re-
moved, and if the street had been
put in good order from the
edge of a neat sidewalk on one
side to the edge of neat sidewalk
on the other side, the street would
have been as wide as there was the
slightest necessity for, and every
one, even the few boulevard fad
dists, would have been content.
But now it is being widened twenty
feet, and if this great work is ever
completed (and I don't think it
ever willy we will have in wet
weather a morass, and in dry
weather a sandy desert in exchange
for the hard cash which will have
been expended thereon, and which
would much better have been APP
piled to keeping the street in its
original width in good order.
Let US then drop, for the present,
all advocacy of street widening and
confine ourselves to stirring up the
Government and the Road Board
to put the streets we have in de
cent condition.
There is certain street named
Kaahumanu, the condition OF
which would be a disgrace to To
phet,-the place where the Minis
ter of Interior wanted to erect the
Market building.
AS far as improving the value OF
property is concerned, l consider
that the substitution of an expans-
i've swamp for decent but narrow
roadway cannot in the smallest de
gree enhance the value of property
in its neighborhood.
If the Government insist on
street widening instead Of street re-
pairing, and the digging of trenches
instead of the building of roads,
the Ostrich Ranch company should
break in their birds to the saddle,
so that we may get something high
enough to keep us out of the mud,
and save us from being picked up,
"cold, damp unpleasant bod
ies'' from the water holes.
Yours,
THE 1DLER.
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