Home Depot may affect Pearl City traffic

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Transportation Writer

With the Pearl City Home Depot to open for business Thursday along Kamehameha Highway, one of Oahu's most congested corridors is about to get a little busier.

Shoppers ready to head there this weekend will have to get used to the new traffic configuration. Commuters who aren't planning to stop and shop may want to avoid the area for a while.

The 130,000-square-foot store, across the highway from Sam's Club, will open at 5 a.m. Thursday and a grand opening is set for Saturday. The store will have 600 parking stalls.

But the real traffic test will come on weekends.

That's when commuters and shoppers will travel along a section of Kamehameha Highway that already handles more than 40,000 vehicles a day. The area houses Sam's Club, the community post office, and Leeward Community College. Waimano Home Road, another busy intersection, is only a half-mile away.

The city also recently opened nearby Kuala Street — nicknamed "Spine Road" — as part of its Manana development.

The Home Depot entrance will be directly across the intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Acacia Road.

Home Depot hours will be from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays. The company has no immediate plans to operate the Pearl City store 24 hours a day as it does at its Iwilei location, said company spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher.

As part of an agreement to develop the area, Home Depot installed a new traffic signal, and added two left-turn lanes along Kamehameha Highway 'ewa-bound to help cars turn into the Home Depot site.

A short right-turn lane also was added along Kamehameha Highway in the Honolulu-bound direction. Traffic from all directions at the intersection of the Home Depot entrance will have a left-turn signal.

Gallagher said the company does not plan to hire off-duty police officers or extra security to direct traffic during the initial weeks of business.

"With the changes we made, we think the traffic will be fine," Gallagher said.

Another way to Home Depot is through the city's newly-extended Kuala Street that runs through Manana from the intersection of Moanalua and Waimano Home roads, to Acacia Road across Home Depot.

"Hopefully, Kuala Street will take some of the traffic away from Waimano Home Road," said Rodney Haraga of KFC Engineering Management Inc., which is overseeing the Manana development for the city.

Pearl City Neighborhood Board chairman Albert Fukushima said community leaders, beginning Thursday, will observe traffic patterns to see if the new lane configurations help traffic flow.

Fukushima said the city is supposed to monitor traffic flow along Kamehameha Highway when Home Depot opens.

Scott Ishikawa can be reached at sishikawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.