Posted on: Sunday, June 24, 2001

City completes Pearl Harbor Historic Trail plan

By James Gonser
Advertiser Central Bureau

City officials have completed the master plan for an 18.6-mile Pearl Harbor Historic Trail along the shoreline from 'Aiea to Nanakuli that residents hope will boost tourism and the economy and provide recreational activities.

Robyn Blanpied, a member of the 'Aiea-Pearl City vision team and the community project coordinator, said the next step is to establish a nonprofit Friends of the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail to coordinate activities, act as a liaison between various agencies and raise money for the project.

"For all the people that have been talking and dreaming about it, now we want to begin to actually move forward to get this master plan implemented," Blanpied said. "Then we can go out and look for funding."

The proposed trail, which would run from the USS Arizona Memorial and Battleship Missouri Memorial near 'Aiea to Lualualei Access Road in Nanakuli, would be implemented over 20 years and cost tens of millions of dollars, city officials said.

The trail would be a 40-foot-wide right of way that would be used as a jogging/biking trail parallel to an old-style locomotive route.

Along the way would be bus/transit routes and stations, city parks and golf courses and interpretive cultural and environmental facilities.

The concept was first proposed by 'Aiea-Pearl City community leaders under the city's "vision team" program in 1999.

The train portion of the route would include activities by the Hawaiian Railway Society, which already operates train rides along a stretch of the old O'ahu Railway & Land Co. right of way on the Leeward Coast.

"We are starting to appreciate our own history out here and want to be able to pass it along," Blanpied said. "With all the development that is taking place, we really need to look at what our legacy is going to be to the Hawaiian people 20 or 50 years from now."

Blanpied said the trail would be used by residents and tourists and would benefit local businesses.

"We have an area here with great potential for eco-tourism, Hawaiian heritage and economic development," she said. "We are hoping in 20 years we will have a community that looks toward the waterfront, that works with the Navy and businesses, can bring in tourists and have more for everyone to do."