STAND. COM. REP. NO. 994

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 1191

       S.D. 2

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1191, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PEDESTRIAN SAFETY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Transportation to conduct a study to identify intersections where the time to cross the intersection is insufficient for elderly pedestrians, and to develop additional plans to make crosswalks and roadways safer.

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation, Department of Health, AARP Hawaii, Ke Ala Hele Makalae/Kauai Coastal Path, the Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs, and the Hawaii Bicycling League.

     Your Committee finds that making Hawaii's roadways safer for pedestrians is consistent with Kamehameha's famous law, Ke Kanawai Mamalahoe, the law of the splintered paddle, now in Article IX of the State Constitution.  Ke Kanawai Mamalahoe ensures every man, woman, and child is able to travel freely and in peace, with the right "to lie down to sleep by the roadside without fear of harm."

     Your Committee amended this measure to allow the Department of Transportation in conjunction with nonprofit organizations and the counties to:

     (1)  Take immediate action steps to make crosswalks and roadways safe; and

     (2)  Conduct a statewide study to identify intersections where the time to cross the intersection is insufficient for elderly pedestrians, and to develop additional plans to make crosswalks and roadways safe.

     Your Committee further amended this measure to provide unspecified appropriations in each year of the 2007-2009 fiscal biennium for traffic countdown timers, a public awareness campaign, and pilot safety measures such as pedestrian activated signals, the painting of advanced crosswalk markings, hand-carried signs and flags, enforcement of crosswalk laws for drivers and pedestrians, and to provide grants-in-aid to the counties for traffic countdown timers.  The grants-in-aid are to be supported by a dollar-for-dollar match from the counties.  Your Committee deleted the amount allotted for the statewide crosswalk safety and improvement study, leaving it unspecified for further discussion.  Technical, nonsubstantive changes have also been made for the purposes of clarity and style.

     It is your Committee's expectation that the Department of Transportation will work in collaboration with the AARP and the counties for the purposes of fulfilling this Act.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1191, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1191, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair