Posted on: Monday, September 6, 2004

End in sight for Nimitz roadwork

By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer

Drivers who travel on Nimitz Highway along the waterfront in downtown Honolulu might have one more thing to be thankful for this November — an end to a seemingly interminable series of construction projects between Bethel and River streets.

For well more than a year, the Nimitz pavement has been a crazy quilt of potholes, steel plates, flashing barricades, plastic cones and last-second lane-closure signs.

A state Department of Transportation improvement project that began in February 2003 was supposed to be completed a year later, but wasn't.

Scott Ishikawa, Department of Transportation spokesman, said that if all goes according to plan, the project should be completed in November. That would put the $16 million project about nine months behind schedule and approximately $1.5 million over the original cost estimate of $14.5 million.

Ishikawa said two months of the delay were due to a strike by ready-mix concrete truck drivers earlier this year.

Part of the project includes pouring a concrete jacket around new water pipes under the pavement in hopes it will keep the new pipes from breaking as frequently as the former, nearly 100-year-old pipes did.

"There were numerous unforeseen conditions that were encountered during the waterline trenching, excavation and installation," Ishikawa said.  Unknown concrete structures, existing utilities that weren't shown on maps, hard coral and numerous field changes slowed the progress of the project, he said.

Total additional working days numbered about 140, or about seven months of time on the calendar.

The original contract amount has risen from about $14.5 million to about $15.6 million. And by the time all of the pending change orders are processed, the total spent on the project will likely exceed $16 million, with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply contributing about $6.5 million toward the waterline work, he said.

The waterfront thoroughfare will sport new underground utilities, new curbs and gutters, intersections that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, new makai sidewalks and railings and new streetlights and traffic signals.

The frosting on the cake will come later this year or early next year, when the stretch of Nimitz between Bethel and River streets is repaved.

"We will also repave Nimitz between the airport viaduct and Hilo Hattie's, either late this year or early next year, after Moanalua Freeway resurfacing is finished," Ishikawa said.

Reach David Waite at 525-7412 or dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.