The Hawaiian gazette., 1911-05-26
is ROAD SYSTEM
|. A ROTTEN ONE?
Sanitation Commission Is
Discovering New
Facts.
HIGHWAYS TOO HIGH
ManOa Stream May Be
Fated to Become
a Sewer.
(From Thursdayls Advertiser.l

(0rom Thursdays Advertiser.9 n
If the sanitation committee was called |
upon to present a report at the end of
its three days Of inspection in the Wa |
il1iki end Of the city, would it feel com
PEELED to announce that the entire
municipal and territorial system of
engineering construction, roads ANA so
forth, was a mistake, full of bungling
errors and construction detrimental in
stead of beneficial to the communityf
This question is the most prominent
before the members of the sanitation
committee themselves and it was with
eyes opened to the enormous respons:
bilities of their position, which hey
did not at first realize. that they com
pleted yesterday tour of inspection
through Kaimpli, lower Palolo aud
around College Hills, Manoa.
As they do not have to make re-
port at this time, they reserve deci-
sion on this startling question in the
hope that future inspection may de-
theory of municipal construction or
for some little incident that will make
the completed work appear little
better than it looks at present.
Pertinent Questions.
Are the roads, pride of orr city
fathers, merely monuments to utter in
adequacy on the part of the city engi-
neering department and the super
wilson's to construct wisely, as they are
supposed to doi
Are the exigencies of sewerage and
drainage going to compel Honolulu to
turn her mountain streams with their
picturesqueness and park possibilities
into filthy sewersl
Is the condition of the city so bad
that the mere fact that it will have
to be drained continually at points
along its shoreline precludes bathing at
Waikiki with any degree of safety3
These three questions arose in two
short hours yesterday afternoon,
If residents complain that the COM
mission is handing ont pretty poor
advertisement for the capital of the
Paradise of the Pacific it might be ex-
planned that instead of hunting with
any degree of righteousness for trouble,
the commission did not go into the
details of one one-hundredth of the
land it covered yesterday.
Roads Out Of Plumb.
The principal problem which mate
rialized yesterday is whether or not the
road system the city road department
has adopted, or rather the lack of sys-
TEN, is a complete mistake. Every
where the commission has gone it has
found that the roads are universally
built too high without any attempt to
establish grades or any other consid-
Grafton of engineering ethics.
This fact the commission did not as
certain by merely travelling over the
roads any more than it becomes ap.
parent to any one else who travels
over them, admiring the scenery round
about. 1t was by penetrating through
this scenery, by dismounting and get
ting down to brass tacks and eOndi-
tions as they look from the bottom up
that the commission has been compelled
to arrive at the tentative conclusion 1t
now holds.
Chairman Carter takes as an illus
tration King street, even Waikiki of
Fort, in the fifteen-mile speed limit
Here it is just high enough to prevent
the drainage of the property mauka OF
lls II ID lOO nlRu 10 blOIHA SbhCIt
along it and draw of this water to a
point where it could be sent into the
sea, for the water wouldn't run into
it, but would continue, as it does now
to make every lot a fair imitation OF
pond at raintime. The public only
knows how little criticism King street
win stand anywhere else.
Like a Dixie.
Kalakaua avenue is nothing any
more or less than "A eauseway in swamp
lands, By building il as it has, the
city, in its consummate wisdom, has
made the imperative draining of some
FIVE or six hundred acres mauka Of il
an engineering difficulty. =
Beretania avenue, from. Moiliili tt
the Sacred Heart Academy. shoppers NJ
sunken strip of land ,manka .of Il
back to the hills, a land eighty pei
cent under water eleven months in the
year. II is for land like this that tbs
sanitary commission is to devise
scheme for the eradication of mos
quitoes.
Postponing decision yester on tn,
road question. as il has materializet
thus far. the commission has eontente6
itself with iOtting down this question
in its notebeak for consideration al
future conference; care we to built
our roads four or Eve feet above thu
scenery, as We do now, and make cause
ways Of them, or are we to make theu
leevl with our property and means Of
safe travel, good drainage and con
strneted out Of engineering good sense
instead Of political neeessifys" Thii
last item the commission does not ia
tend n bother with Effect and not
cause IL the object OF ~ being.
Preliminary survey.
YeffoFday'a tour OF Inspection com
nleted the preliminary survey Of ID.
drainage problems 81 the Waikiki emf
% tho city. This problem has resolved
liAeit with the exception 81 local dif
nfnliieH' into 5 question Of whothaI
'usss '"ampa are formed by mountail