My bedroom faces a park on Kuhio and Liliuokalani. Street noise on Kuhio comes to my ears ALL THE TIME. When THE BUS starting using external talking at 5 am I almost jumped out of my skin. It sounded like there was a man yelling in my ears in my bedroom. I thought this will never fly in bedroom communities. I know it's intended to help visually impaired and other language speakers find their way. Some drivers still start that early on Sunday mornings and keep it up until past 10 PM.
Then there is 1 motorcyclist, with a very loud, souped up engine, who rides up and down Kuhio all hours of the day and night. Police have made no attempt to stop this intrusive noise disturbance which occurs daily. I alone can't be the only resident (among all the condos along his route) woken by or annoyed by this intrusive, inconsiderate rider's bike.
I discovered your organization through Civil Beat and am grateful for it.
Quieter O'ahu Response:
Aloha,
If you look at our blog you'll see a posting we made under "Noisy Non-Compliant Busses In Waikiki." Many, many, many of your Waikiki neighborhoods have similar issues with noise. As we recommended to that submitter, your best path forward would be through your Neighborhood Board, Waikiki Board #9. You can find info on this board at this link: http://www.honolulu.gov/cms-nco-menu/site-nco-featured/191-site-nco-cat/682-test.html . The Waikiki Neighborhood Board meets the second Tuesday of each month at the Waikiki Community Center located at 310 Paoakalani Avenue at 7:00 pm. Attending these meetings each month will be a rep from the Mayor's Office, a rep from or your state legislator, a rep from or your council member, your local fire dept, and your HPD District 6 representative. You can contact your board via email and request 5 minutes to address the board and tell them or your issue with the busses, or ask that they add your issue to the agenda as a question for HPD District 6. You can put it before both the board and HPD, and the other representatives attending, that you and your neighbors are sick and tired of the noise. And we would suggest, in particular, the motorcycle noise, which is threatening to deafen everyone in Waikiki - as well as drive away our tourism. As you can find on our website here: https://www.quieteroahu.com/hawaii-noise-laws.html there are AMPLE ordinances and statutes governing motorcycle noise. So well covered is this noise, in fact, that HPD could shut it down tomorrow if they wanted to. The problem is that they do not want to, and there is no one in authority telling them that they will. Unbelievably, your Mayor and City Council will tell you that noise isn't a problem in Waikiki. Your neighborhood board working to apply pressure to HPD could be instrumental is beginning the necessary ground swell to compel enforcement by HPD.
We will post your issue to our blog (without your contact info). I'm certain others will relate to this problem and perhaps they, too, will reach out to HPD through their boards and insist that our noise laws be enforced.
Mahalo,
Quieter O'ahu