Lahaina Sun Letters

EDITOR:

I read with much interest your article on the proposed ferry landing at Lahaina in your December 8th issue. As a newcomer to Maui, the one thing that drew us to the Lahaina area was the "old time atmosphere" of your town. The narrow streets, interesting little shops and the superb view all along Front Street.

Why spoil all this with an unsightly ferry dock, a several-acre holding area for trucks and cars waiting to board the ferry, plus the necessary widening of streets and installation of stop lights to control the heavy ferry traffic. The good people of Lahaina need all this confusion like they need a hole in the head.

A good share of the vehicular traffic coming off the ferry at Maui will be trucks of all descriptions; from big diesel semi-trailers to pickups. All complete with heavy exhause fumes and noise. What Maui merchant will want to barge his goods in, what with the uncertainties of longshore operations, when he can stuff a trailer in Honolulu and have the goods delivered right to his door without being handled several times.

Do you want all this truck traffic funneled right through Lahaina? Most of the tourists will be driving rented cars and will be coming to Maui to see all the island, including Lahaina. It won't matter to them whether the ferry dock is located in Lahaina or not.

As a former resident of Washington State, I have traveled every route of the British Columbia and Alaska State ferry systems, considered to be the largest and most efficient of their types in the world. They have in use ferries as large or larger than the proposed inter-island ferry in question. In almost every case both of these systems located their ferry terminals several miles outside of town and only located on the downtown waterfront if there was already a large amount of dockage already built and if there was sufficient land available for holding areas and the streets leading to the ferry dock could be readily widened.

In my estimation, locating the ferry dock on the Lahaina waterfront would be a most unwise decision; the minus factors far outway the plus factors, if any.

PRESTON A. COOPER
Puamana, Lahaina

Lahaina Sun Letters