Wai'anae access road studies to begin
By James Gonser
Advertiser Leeward Bureau
The city's plan for an emergency access road along the Wai'anae Coast keeps moving, with public comments gathered and city, state and federal groups all looking for money to pay for the $9.2 million project. But some residents worry that with six months of planned studies about to begin, the project is moving too slowly.
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 or police standoffs on Farrington Highway, the only road into the rural community.
The city planning team, represented by David Bills of Gray Hong Bills and Associates, and Bruce Tsuchida of Townscape Inc., have been holding meetings in four sub-districts to discuss possible routes and the effects of an access road through each neighborhood. The most recent was last Tuesday to discuss the overall route.
At that meeting, attended by about 100 residents, Bills said the consultants will now begin the preliminary engineering phase of the project.
Bills said this phase includes a topographic survey of each selected route, the preliminary design of roadways including drainage and utility features, detailed preliminary costs estimates, identification of land acquisition and land use requirements, and initiating discussions with agencies and entities regarding an operational system of access roads. Environmental studies will also be required, he said.
The consultants expect to update the work at the next general community meeting in September.
Nanakuli resident Patty Teruya attended the meeting and said the community is happy with the planned routes but said six months for studies is too long.
"Studies should be going on now," Teruya said. "If they're going to do studies all the way until September, can you imagine when construction is going to begin? Should we have another disaster in Wai'anae, we don't have time for studies."
Cheryl Soon, director of the city Department of Transportation Services, said planning takes time.
"What takes the most time is they have to do the survey work," Soon said. "In some areas there is already roadway, but some of it is through raw land. We have been very happy with the consultant and when he tells me it is going to take six months, he is probably quite accurate."
Last year, the city budgeted $1 million for the project, and Mayor Jeremy Harris has requested an additional $5 million in his 2002 budget for construction. The budget is before the City Council.
"We felt there was enough community consensus to authorize the consultant to go ahead and start on some of the design work," Soon said. "We will work on each of the four sections, do the designs and then go back to the community and start prioritizing the work until we have exhausted the $5 million. We will then see what's left and will make a request next year for the balance."
To help support the work, Sen. Coleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Barbers Point, Makaha), is trying to send to the city $1 million in state money appropriated two years ago to study the possibility for a new mauka highway into the Wai'anae Coast. The study was nixed after Gov. Ben Cayetano last year said the highway could cost as much as $1 billion and is too expensive to even consider.
The O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization's 2025 transportation plan includes $9.3 million for the city emergency access road and $515 milllion for the mauka highway.
OMPO executive director Gordon Lum said the group's 13-member Policy Committee is determining a final list of projects and will meet again at 2 p.m. tomorrow in the City Council committee room in Honolulu Hale.
Lum said the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration looks at this list before any financing is approved and Hawai'i will have $3.5 billion in available money over the next 25 years. Lum said the committee has been looking at more than 100 projects and will have to cut about $1 billion from projects seeking federal financing.
Teruya said the mauka road is a separate issue and the residents need an access road as soon as possible.
"We are walking on a (tight rope) hoping that nothing happens and the road will not be closed," Teruya said. "The population has grown to 40,000 people in recent years and if you look at the rush hour now there are so many cars going in and out of there."
Teruya said with planned projects by the Board of Water Supply to replace old water lines, and proposed projects like TGN Cable's new line, both of which will dig up the highway and cause lane closures, the traffic is only going to get worse.
"We can't afford more projects like this until we have an emergency access route," Teruya said. "I don't want any more digging."
