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A group of concerned Kihei residents has discovered that state of Hawaii transportation planners have been using the classic drawing toy Spirograph to design new roundabouts in town.
Spirograph is a geometric drawing tool that helps artists produce mathematically wild curves, and intricate, eye-catching swirls. It was first sold in 1965.
“We admit it, we pretended to be custodians and snuck into the state Department of Transportation offices,” said Brian Godly, of the Kihei citizens' group Dizzy Kiheians Against Roundabouts. “It took some time to find the Maui desk, but eventually we ran across a room full of drafting boards and all these crazy circular designs that some of us old folks thought looked kind of familiar.”
“Then we saw those little clear sprocket-looking thingies and we knew,” said Jorge Spinadillia, also of Kihei, and secretary of DKAR.
State traffic administrators acknowledged that they were testing out new creative concepts in Kihei, with an eye on maybe re-purposing the same designs on Oahu.
"We think the new Kihei roundabout on the Pi'ilani Highway is a superb design, and it was made with one of those really small wheels on Spirograph," said Ed Alolio, director of forward planning for the Hawaii Department of Transportation.
"And now thanks to President Biden's infrastructure money, we have approval to build two new roundabouts on Kihei surface streets," he said. "This time we're using medium-sized Spirograph wheels."
