County’s plan for island’s bridges will not resolve ongoing crisis created by growth | Opinion

An optional bridge plan

The Mackay Creek Bridge needs replacement.

The county has decided that a single six-lane bridge should replace all four island bridges to reduce traffic congestion.

This is not viable for two reasons:

First, the William Hilton Parkway is the only north-south avenue on the island.

In the 1950s the state failed to provide zoning that would include additional north-south island avenues.

One avenue requires a driver to use the WHP to go from one neighborhood street cluster to another or to a commercial property. As tourism increases and mixes with resident traffic, congestion rises to a level where travel times become annoying and worse.

The state built the Cross Island Parkway in 1987 to provide a second path reducing north island congestion. It is not adequate for today’s increasing traffic and additional north-south avenues are not possible.

Second, the “Fundamental Law of Traffic Congestion” states that as congestion increases, adding lanes to existing routes further increases congestion.

The current SCDOT six-lane bridge project will not reduce congestion, is unnecessarily expensive and causes unfair dislocation in the Stoney neighborhood.

The Chamber of Commerce’s ongoing promotion of tourism without recognizing infrastructure capacity must be challenged.

A better plan is to replace the Mackay Bridge with a prefabricated bridge design that can reduce time and cost, reduce environmental requirements and leave Stoney intact.

The USDOT recommends the use of prefabricated bridges for nationwide bridge replacement.

Finally, our state, county, and town politicians must take responsibility for balancing tourism with island residents’ quality of life and island capacity limits.

Joseph E. Kernan, HHI

Approve Ukraine funding

An open letter to Congresswoman Nancy Mace: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will likely be successful unless the U.S. provides immediate funding and supplies for Ukraine.

Republicans in Congress are holding up that support solely for political reasons.

They are doing so because they say they first want more security for our southern border, but a good bipartisan border deal was negotiated in the Senate, and for his own political purposes, Trump then dictated to Republican senators and representatives that they reject that deal, and they caved.

Trump once again puts his own interests ahead of the country’s.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is courageously fighting for its survival as a democracy against a murderous Putin regime.

History teaches that allowing a dictator to conquer a neighbor will encourage further aggression. Ukraine is fighting for itself and for all of Europe.

If we fail to rescue Ukraine today, our cost to protect our own freedoms will be much greater tomorrow, and the world will know that the United States is not a dependable defender of freedom, thus encouraging territorial aggression by all dictators.

China is watching.

It’s critical to save Ukraine’s democracy now, instead of conditioning it on a border deal that will never happen because of Republican submission to Trump’s personal political dictate.

Do the right thing for America. Support Ukraine now.

Mark Hennessey, HHI

Israel will prevail

“When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat,” Ronald Reagan.

The war in Gaza and the hostage situation are at high risk of engulfing the region in a global war.

Since Oct. 7, the world has been watching how Hamas is calling for the distruction of the Jewish state.

For 23 years UNRWA allowed the Hamas organization to build a tunnel of terror using every inch of the Gaza Strip.

Now we all want to stop the war, but Hamas will not surrender, and the remaining hostages are still in unknown conditions while the proxy of Iran Hezbollah is attacking at the north of Israel.

Tell Israel to make peace, and give back Gaza to the terror organization or worse?

Protecting terrorism is not a way to be my dear friends.

You can leave Israel on the frontline, but do not ask Israelis to stay put and defend the Holy Land.

Israel has the right to defend herself, and she will prevail.

God bless America. God bless Israel.

Orly Benny Davis, HHI