Contraflow

I think I write about this experience every time I am in Kauai, but now it has a name. The island does not have many alternate routes to get from one place to another. There is a main road and lots of side roads. Traffic can get heavy and most seems to flow in one direction or the other depending on the time of day. It is something like the lake effect traffic in Minneapolis. It goes North on Friday and South on Sunday afternoon. The situation here is similar except that the change happens each day.  

Much of the road is three lanes wide. With the steep hillsides, building another lane was probably regarded as prohibitively expensive. The solution is evidently contraflow. Now, one way to create the ideal contraflow would be to physically separate three roads with entry points for the middle controlled at the entry and exit. With this approach, you have the cost issue again. How about this idea? We will pay a road crew to separate two lanes from the third lane with traffic cones. They will do this as long as the road is used. Put the cones down in the very early morning (4:15) and pick up the cones to reverse the flow in the early afternoon (11:30). Talk about job security.