Panel takes on Kahekili Highway's problems

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward Bureau

KANE'OHE — A citizens committee formed by the state Transportation Department to come up with suggestions for beautifying Kahekili Highway decided that looking better wasn't enough.

With both safety and beautification in mind, the committee devised a plan that calls for narrowing each lane by 1 foot and widening the sidewalk to accommodate planters that would separate pedestrians from traffic.

"Our entire thrust stems from that stretch of highway being like a freeway and everyone driving like they're on a freeway," said Philip Mowrey, a member of the ad hoc committee and the Kane'ohe Neighborhood Board. "We wanted to calm traffic."

However, what is being proposed will probably cost more than the the state wanted to spend, he said.

When the department widened Kahekili Highway in 1997, it created what residents say is a 1-mile concrete scar on the community that is dangerous, noisy and ugly.

In January the state presented a beautification plan to the Kahalu'u community that called for spending $2.5 million to install planter boxes and resurface the noise walls.

The state's proposal would place a 500-foot-long planter box near Kea'ahala and Ha'iku roads, and a 125-foot-long box near Kahuhipa Street. Trees would be planted in portions of the median and the noise-buffer walls would be covered with a facade.

Transportation Department spokeswoman Marilyn Kali said consultants are working on a second alternative that will take into account the suggestions from the ad hoc committee. The plan should be finished early next month and will then be given to the community for review.

"Generally (the consultants) take whatever ideas they have and try to work them into the area and the space requirements we have," Kali said.

Other suggestions from the ad hoc committee include:

• Placing planters on top of or at the bottom of the walls where vines can cascade down or climb up.
• Texturing walls where planters are not appropriate.
• Getting rid of the chain-link fence on top of walls where it isn't required for safety.
• Removing the concrete barriers in the median and replacing them with grass, a berm featuring a rock arrangement, or flowering shrubs and canopy trees.

Committee members, about 12 Kane'ohe and Kahalu'u residents, are concerned that the plan might cost too much and wonder whether the department will embrace the community's desire to have a safe and beautiful highway, said Mowrey.