Wai'anae road not in OMPO plan

By James Gonser
Advertiser Leeward Bureau

The final list of projects for the O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization's 2025 transportation plan have been selected and, if given final approval next week, will become eligible for federal funding.

But many Leeward residents are disappointed that the $515 million second access route to the Wai'anae Coast was left out.

Dick Boddy, a member of the OMPO Citizen Advisory Committee and a Wai'anae resident, said leaving out the access road is a major mistake.

"The big money was an excuse to dump the secondary road," Boddy said. "Where did that figure come from in the first place? If they leave it on the list there, at least there is the option that it could be built."

The OMPO plan does include $9.3 million for the city's emergency access road, but Boddy said that is just a band-aid proposal and not the real safety improvement needed for the 40,000 area residents in case of a major hurricane or tsunami.

The city's plan is to link a patchwork of existing back roads and build new connector roads to create a route allowing residents to bypass bottlenecks and emergency situations such as accidents, water main breaks and police standoffs on Farrington Highway, the only road into the rural community.

OMPO executive director Gordon Lum said the group's 13-member Policy Committee will meet one more time, at 2 p.m. Friday in the City Council committee room in Honolulu Hale for final approval of the transportation plan.

Lum said the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration will review the list before any financing is approved and that Hawai'i will have $3.5 billion in available money over the next 25 years. The committee has been looking at more than 100 projects and has now cut that to 60 projects in need of federal financing, he said.

"The policy committee endorsed the list at their last meeting," Lum said. "They could make last-minute changes, but I don't foresee any at this time."

The Wai'anae access road was placed at the top of a secondary list of projects that have been identified as important, but are not included in the regional plan. The category indicates the projects are important, Lum said, but cannot be included in the regional plan until a funding source is identified.

"We can't say it is in the regional plan because that has to be financially constrained," Lum said. "It could be added to the plan later if funding was found."

The OMPO regional plan for O'ahu is reviewed every five years.

Some of the more notable items that made the final cut include:

• The city's proposed $889.1 million Bus Rapid Transit system.
• A $38.6 million project to widen Fort Weaver Road from Farrington Highway to Geiger Road.
• An $8.5 million Makakilo Drive extension that would be a second access to the Makakilo community and an entrance to the planned University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu campus.
• A $20 million rockfall protection project along Kalaniana'ole Highway at Makapu'u.
• A $20 million project for an express commuter ferry.

For more information about the OMPO public meeting, call 587-2015.