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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, November 25, 2001

Editorial
Kahekili corridor still looks like L.A.

What the state Department of Transportation did with Kahekili Highway in Kane'ohe, most people now agree, is nothing short of tragic.

Residents covet the country feel of that part of Windward O'ahu. The expansion of both Kahekili and adjoining Likelike were obviously needed.

But in getting the basics right, the department did a lot wrong. The roadway is now as expedient as any built on the Mainland, and looks exactly the part. A huge concrete wall mauka of the road isolates neighborhood homes and blocks the stunning Ko'olau views. The lack of any green space in the median has transformed Kahekili into Any Street USA instead of a unique Island roadway.

What's frustrating is that the project became the sterile eyesore that it is despite complaints that began as soon as construction began. That reinforces the suspicion that Hawai'i bureaucracy is immovable.

Some hope glimmered when The Outdoor Circle, neighborhood boards and community associations that have long sought improvements to that stretch of highway learned that federal money was available and something would be done.

Unfortunately, $2.5 million just doesn't go very far in the detached world of state transportation. Residents were astounded to find that a few planter boxes and some wall texturing was all it would buy.

It's ugly; it's an eyesore; it's the forfeiture of a little bit of Hawai'i's soul. It's a shame that the state seems uninterested in correcting it.