Waipi'o bike path planned

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

The city is planning to spend $4.5 million to increase bicycle and pedestrian access to its popular Waipi'o Peninsula Soccer Park.

Under a proposal announced this week, the city says it wants to improve the existing Waipi'o Point Access Road running from the park to an existing bicycle and pedestrian path behind Waipahu High School.

The plans call for building new mile-long, 6-foot-wide bicycle lanes in both directions and a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on the west side of the park's entryway, according to a draft environmental assessment the city has filed with the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

The project would not affect the amount of automobile traffic on the two-lane road, which is owned by the Navy and used to service a Navy office in the area.

However, it would require taking a now unused piece of the adjacent Ted Makalena Golf Course for drainage improvements along the side of the roadway. In the final design, however, the new grass swale used for drainage would become playable as part of the rough for the course's 18th hole.

The Navy requires the drainage improvements as part of an agreement to allow the city continued use of the roadways.

The city opened the 288-acre soccer complex in 2000. The complex includes 19 fields and can accommodate up to 300 soccer games per day.

The city says it does not anticipate any major environmental problems with implementing the bikeway project.

Federal Highway Administration money would be used to pay a portion of the project costs, city officials said. The work is expected to be completed sometime in 2006.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5460.

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