New Kapolei road no cure-all

By Mike Leidemann and Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writers

After two decades of wrangling, construction of a North-South road in West O'ahu finally will begin early next year.

Afternoon traffic on Fort Weaver Road is typically heavy. The new North-South road is likely to increase links between developing communities in the area, giving residents a new way to visit Kapolei, shop in Waipahu or spur even more development. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"About five years too late," said John Honold, senior pastor at Hope Chapel Kapolei whose offices are in 'Ewa Beach. "The way things are going, we're going to need a Berlin airlift to get food here."

The $121 million, six-lane highway has long been sought to ease traffic congestion in the fastest growing part of O'ahu. It's an area, Honold said, where rapid housing construction has far outpaced the infrastructure.

But even as the work is about to start, some residents wonder how much it will help — or even if it will create new problems.

"We've been waiting so long that I'm not even sure it's going in the right direction anymore," said Maeda Timson, chairwoman of the Makakilo/ Kapolei/Hono-kai Hale Neighborhood Board.

A recently completed draft environmental assessment for the North-South road shows just how bad traffic in the area has become in the years planners and politicians have been debating the final route, financing and environmental protections for the new highway. According to the assessment, daily traffic counts in area roads increased anywhere from 79 percent to 200 percent between 1989 and 2001.

Cindy Charlton, an accountant who has lived in 'Ewa Beach for 15 years and commutes to Kaka'ako each day, said she'll take any help she can get.

"The congestion is ridiculous," she said. "Every day the traffic gets worse and worse and I have to leave earlier and earlier. ...

"Oh," she said, studying a map of the proposed road. "Oh, this would be awesome. I would love this."

Much like opening the H-3 Freeway 10 years ago helped ease traffic congestion for Windward O'ahu commuters on Pali and Likelike highways, planners hope the new North-South road will take the burden off drivers on two of Hawai'i's most notoriously congested roadways, Fort Weaver and Fort Barrette roads — both of which run roughly parallel to the new route.

"Oh, I'll definitely use the North-South road when it's done," said 'Ewa Beach resident Kurt Fevella, who now drives miles out of his way through the old Barbers Point area to reach the freeway rather than face the daily gauntlet of traffic signals and congestion on Fort Weaver Road.

Yesterday, Honold, the Hope Chapel pastor, stood in the parking lot at Kapolei Shopping Center trying to explain to a new co-worker why it was important to go miles out of the way to avoid Fort Weaver Road.

"It's too congested," he said. "There are too many houses: you'll run over a dog. You'll hit somebody."

Jim Blewster, the co-worker who will be commuting to 'Ewa Beach from Honolulu, looked pleased to see a map showing the proposed North-South road.

"There is a way out of Egypt," he said.

State Rep. Mark Moses, R-40th (Makakilo, Kapolei, Royal Kunia), said, "With three main routes in and out of the area, things are bound to get better."

The question for some, though, is whether the new road can offset the continuing development in the area, where the city's most recent projections estimate the population will reach 171,000 by 2030 — a 158 percent increase over now.

"One of the tragedies is that the new road is not what it originally should have been or what it needs to be in the future," said Timson, the neighborhood board chairwoman. "Things have changed so much since they first started talking about it that there's a lot of confusion and conflict in the community about what the result is really going to be."

"Originally the North-South road was going to be the big thing, the cure-all," she said. "By now, though it's just another road that can help."

Moses agreed, saying, "It's extremely important, but it's still only one piece of the picture. It won't solve the problem, but it will help ease the pain for now."

State Sen. Willie Espero, D-20th ('Ewa Beach-Waipahu), said the road will definitely help, but some residents are already wondering if it will bring new problems, too.

"Some people are worried that it will bring even more traffic into Kapolei and past Kapolei High School," where the state and city have been slow to put in new traffic signals and other safety devices, he said.

DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa said, however, that the new road should ease traffic in Kapolei.

"Right now, we know that there are a lot of 'Ewa residents who use Kalaeloa and Fort Barrette Road as a backdoor way of getting to the freeway," he said. "The hope is that many of those people will now use the new road instead."

The ultimate success of the North-South road depends on the city completing the unfinished portions of the existing Kapolei Parkway, officials said.

To that end, the North-South road work that begins in January, using a combination of federal, state and "impact fees" imposed several years ago on area developers, will include finishing a seven-tenths-mile stretch of Kapolei Parkway that would otherwise have been left to city financing.

The first, $76 million phase of the project also calls for building only a limited interchange with the H-1 Freeway (a west-bound off-ramp and an east-bound on-ramp). Other phases of the project, including completing a full four-way freeway interchange, aren't scheduled to be completed until about 2015.

"I'm just happy that they're finally doing something right now to alleviate traffic," Timson said. "Doing something is always better than doing nothing."

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5460; and Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2430.

• • •