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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Repaving put ahead of bike path plan


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The state Transportation Department is fast-tracking three more highway repaving projects, moving them up so they'll begin within the next year.

The projects will be added this week to the state transportation improvement program for 2004-06, a move that ensures federal money will be available when the contracts are ready to be signed later this year.

The projects include:

  • 'Aiea Access Road resurfacing from Moanalua Road to Kamehameha Highway.

  • H-1 Freeway concrete pavement preservation from Wai'anae to Kaimuki.

  • H-3 Freeway between the Halekou and Marine Corp Base Hawai'i interchanges.

    The department also is considering developing a new program to provide transportation for the elderly and disabled in some areas.

    "This is something being studied at this moment," said DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa. Although the city's Handivan service provides this service throughout urban O'ahu, there are large areas of the state, particularly on Neighbor Islands, where similar transportation is not available.

    The Federal Transit Administration could provide money for state officials to buy buses or other vehicles to assist elderly and disabled people where mass transportation services are unavailable, insufficient or inappropriate, Ishikawa said.

    Although there's no word on when such additional services might be available, putting the idea on the new statewide plan is an indication that state officials are seriously considering it.

    Meanwhile, a number of other projects that were on the original list have been pushed back several years for a variety of reasons, Ishikawa said. Most will now be included on the 2006-08 transportation plan. They include:

  • Intersection improvements at Haleakala and Nanakuli avenues on Farrington Highway.

    "These two Farrington Highway projects are being deferred to 2008 because the in-house design process just started this past March," Ishikawa said.

  • The Leeward Bikeway. The schedule now calls for right-of-way acquisition to begin in 2007 and construction in 2008.

    Finally, one city project is expected to be taken off the statewide plan when the O'ahu Metropolitan Planning Organization meets later this week. That's the In-Town Initial Operating Segment of Honolulu's old mass transit plan, otherwise known as Bus Rapid Transit or BRT.

    With the federal government saying it won't provide money and the new city administration no longer backing it, taking it off the statewide plan would be the final official nail in the BRT coffin.