Q. Are bicyclists allowed to ride their bikes in crosswalks or are they required to walk their bikes when crossing?

A. Honolulu Police Sgt. Robert Lung said bicyclists can walk or ride in crosswalks, because there is no state or city ordinance pertaining to bicycles crossing in a crosswalk.

Q. Is it still jaywalking if a crosswalk is 1,000 feet or a mile away?

A. Lung had that answer, too. But it wasn't quite so simple. Basically, the answer is no, because if you are more than 200 feet from an intersection you can still legally cross outside of a crosswalk, he said. And you can also cross at intersections without crosswalk markings because there are such things as "unmarked crosswalks."

State law says "between adjacent intersections at which traffic-control signals are in operation pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk." But Honolulu's traffic code says, "No pedestrian shall cross any roadway within any business district except within a marked or unmarked crosswalk, nor any roadway in any residence district within 200 feet of any intersection except within a marked or unmarked crosswalk at such intersection."

Q. Does the state Transportation Department have any plans to alleviate traffic coming in and out of Nanakuli? It takes a half-hour to 45 minutes just to get out of Nanakuli during morning rush hour.

A. State transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa said design work is under way for left-turn lanes along Farrington Highway (town-bound direction) into Nanakuli Avenue and Haleakala Avenue. Right now, that section of Farrington Highway is a pinch point because parents are dropping off their children at the new Nanaikapono Elementary campus, on the mauka side of the highway, he said.

So, Ishikawa said, creating left-turn storage lanes would give drivers an area to wait while turning left and would benefit the through traffic heading into town. However, he said those lanes need to be squeezed in along the already narrow highway. "We cannot widen the road too much on the makai side because of the old railway line, which is part of a historical district," he said. He said the Legislature set aside $100,000 for design and $1.9 million for construction for this project.

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Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.