Parades, marathon will add to holiday season traffic jams
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer
Only 16 driving days until Christmas.
The usual holiday increase in lunch time and pau hana traffic has hit the town like a snowstorm in New York. At least, the effect is the same: bumper-to-bumper, crawl-along traffic and few places to park.
City and state officials say they don't have any statistics showing that traffic gets worse in December, but you don't need a roadway engineer to tell you that. Driving down Kapi'olani Boulevard about 4 p.m. on a Friday or hitting H-1 Freeway near the Punchbowl exit on Saturday morning will let you know that things are bad.
(Someday, of course, you'll be able to hop the rail system instead, just like in New York City, but that's another story — and one that's a long way off, too.)
So for now, you just have to grin and bear it or laugh smugly if you've already done your Christmas shopping. It doesn't hurt, though, to know some of the areas where things will be complicated by parades, runs or other events that can add to the congestion as well as the Christmas spirit:
• Parades. The annual Christmas rush peaks this week with parades in Kapahulu on Thursday, Pauoa and Hale'iwa on Friday, and 'Ewa Beach, Waimanalo, Kapolei and Manoa on Saturday. Most last about an hour, but it will seem like a lot longer if you get stuck behind one or on a cross street. Details of times, locations and magnitude of the parades can be found on the city Web site www.co.honolulu.hi.us/dts/usage/event12.htm.
• Runs. The granddaddy of all the traffic-disrupting street runs occurs a week later than usual this year — Sunday. The Honolulu Marathon starts at 5 a.m. at the Ala Moana/Queen Street extension, works its way through downtown Honolulu, then Waikiki, all the way to Hawai'i Kai and back to Kapi'olani Park. Organizers expect about 26,000 runners.
Streets are closed sequentially and it's usually a lot less hassle than you think, unless you live on one of those Kahala streets that feed into Kalaniana'ole Highway as the masses are trudging past. If you need to get somewhere on Sunday morning, it might be wise to study a map of the marathon course (www.honolulumarathon.org/course_maps.html) and figure out alternative routes.
• Construction. Rust never sleeps and neither does roadwork, except for the briefest of holiday windows. This week, though, city projects are continuing everywhere from Ala Moana Boulevard to Waipahu. A list of weekly roadwork projects can be found at the Department of Transportation Services Web site www.co.honolulu.hi.us/dts under the street usage section.
• Special notice. Finally, the city says that daily and monthly parking at the Blaisdell Center lot will not be allowed Dec. 26. The one-day ban is in place to make room for an event being held at the center that day. It might be a good opportunity to take TheBus instead. You can find a list of routes and schedules on the Web, too: thebus.org/Route/Route.asp.
Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
