Bureaucrats wrangle over Pi'ikoi, Pensacola switch
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Back in 1970, city officials made Pi'ikoi and Pensacola streets one-way. Ever since, some people have been saying they got it all backward.
Although area residents remain adamantly opposed to the idea, city and state officials say there is some merit to calls for reversing the traffic direction on the two heavily traveled north-south streets in the heart of Honolulu.
Supporters say the plan would help drivers going both directions. Those getting onto H-1 Freeway from a mauka-bound Pensacola Street would avoid a whole block of bumper-to-bumper traffic before hitting the freeway on-ramp. Those heading toward Ala Moana Center on a makai-bound Pi'ikoi Street would no longer have to cross one of the busiest intersections in town.
"It's just common sense," said state Sen. Fred Hemmings, a member of the O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, which coordinates traffic policy issues in Honolulu. "Just look at a map and you see why it makes sense."
Others say the proposal would cause needless trouble for drivers and residents.
"Forget about it," said Kenneth Bell, a Makiki Neighborhood Board member who lives on Pensacola Street. "All it would do is turn things upside down and not improve anything. It's simply impractical."
The proposed switch is included in the most recent list of traffic improvements approved by the O'ahu planning organization. State Transportation Department officials support the plan, but city Transportation Services Director Cheryl Soon said a change is not under active consideration.
"The idea comes up from time to time. It has merit, but there's a lot of opposition, too," Soon said. "For right now, it's dormant."
The idea has been around for three decades and refuses to die. Talk of reversingPensacola and Pi'ikoi traffic arose in the 1970s. One version of the plan is in the metro planning organization's 1991 report calling for improvements in traffic circulation.
"Reversing the direction of traffic on Pi'ikoi Street and Pensacola Street would certainly have immediate benefits," the report said.
Field observations provided "subjective confirmation" that the reversals would improve traffic on Pensacola and Pi'ikoi and their cross-streets, the report said.
So how come nothing has changed? Why does an afternoon trip from Pi'ikoi Street, past Pensacola and onto the H-1 Freeway remain one of Honolulu's most frustrating driving experiences?
Gordon Lum, executive director of the metro planning organization, said the group has the power only to suggest changes, but can't implement them. "We've recommended the change several times, but we're not the ones who have the final decision," he said.
Any change in the traffic flow would have to involve both city and state officials, Lum said. The city has jurisdiction over the two streets, but the state would be involved because the work affects H-1 Freeway access.
Lum said the proposal is included in his agencty's latest O'ahu regional transportation plan. That report estimates the costs involved in the program at $3.6 million; the 1991 report said the work could have been done then for about $770,000. Most of the costs involve changes to the freeway on-ramp just past Pensacola Street and creating a new entrance to the Makiki Post Office, which is nestled under the freeway.
Those kinds of delays and escalating costs drive Hemmings crazy.
"To tell you the truth, I really don't have the time to read the mountain of paperwork that OMPO produces," said Hemmings, R-25th (Kailua, Waimanalo). "Could we get Pensacola and Pi'ikoi turned around before the end of the year? I think we could." Other planners say a change would take several years of detailed planning to take effect, even if everybody agreed to it.
Some area residents say the change would not fix anything.
"All it's doing is moving trouble over one block. We've thought it was sort of settled, but these thing have a way of coming back to life again," said Norma Jean Nicholl, a Pensacola Street resident. "It will be the same problems in different locations."
Even before the one-way changes were announced in 1970, Pi'ikoi Street had a reputation as one of the most dangerous roads in Honolulu.
In 1970, for instance, city officials noted more than 130 accidents in a seven-block stretch of Pi'ikoi between Waimanu and Kina'u streets. Twenty-nine of those accidents in 1970 occurred at Kapi'olani Boulevard. Twenty-five years later, the story was much the same; Honolulu police reported 56 traffic accidents at or near the same intersection in 1995, prompting officials to eliminate left turns from Kapi'olani onto Pi'ikoi in the mauka direction.
When the original coupling of Pi'ikoi and Pensacola streets was imagined in the late 1960s, Honolulu officials envisioned an end to all major traffic problems in the area.
"This may mean the virtually complete elimination of congestion," Roy Parker, a deputy city traffic engineer, said the day the changes were implemented, Dec. 1, 1970.
