MAKAHA — Life-long Wai'anae Coast resident Denise Pave relaxed in the breezy shade of a kamani tree at Makaha Beach Park yesterday afternoon and echoed the sentiments of area surfers and beachgoers who are pleased the city has replaced the beachside public shower facility it removed in the spring.

"I think it's good they've got the showers back on this side of the road, from a safety standpoint," said Pave, 28.

A storm of protest erupted after the city took out the shower and a dilapidated "temporary" restroom on the diamondhead end of the beach that had been there since the early 1990s. City crews also shut down the shower spigot at the other end of the beach park, forcing beachgoers to cross Farrington Highway to reach a shower and modern comfort station there.

Following the outcry, city work crews recently restored both Makaha Beach shower sites. So while residents hail the city's prompt about-face, they are still concerned about having to cross the road to use a restroom.

"The community is delighted that the city took fast action on replacing this much-needed shower," said state Rep. Maile Shimabukuro, D-45th (Wai'anae, Makaha, Makua). "And a majority of the community continues to hope the highway can be rerouted to mauka of the park."

That idea, she contends, is in keeping with a Makaha master plan mapped out years ago.

Shimabukuro has said local residents are frustrated and confused because the beach park once included the entire seaside-to-mauka area through which the highway travels.

"The community can't understand why the decision was made to drop a highway down in the middle of the most popular beach on the coast," she said in a June 5 press release.

But state Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa takes exception to the claim that the road was built through the beach park.

"I talked to our planners and I found out that the road was there way before the park," said Ishikawa. "The realignment of that road has been there since 1937, as well as both the wooden bridges on it. And I don't know when the city expanded the beach park to the mauka side of Farrington Highway, but I do know we had pedestrian safety concerns about it at the time."

As far as realigning the highway around the modern comfort station and canoe halau now located on the mountain side of the road, Ishikawa said when that idea came up in the 1980s some members of the community opposed the plan because it would have meant removing private homes in the area.

And to realign the highway these days would cost tens of millions of dollars, he said.

Shimabukuro acknowledged that some Native Hawaiian activists oppose the realignment plan because they believe it would disturb Hawaiian burial grounds in the area.

But she said most of her constituents favor moving the road out of the park.

Short of that, some folks believe the state should install a crosswalk light for pedestrians. However, city Parks and Recreation Department director Lester Chang has said that when he suggested such a plan to the state he was told that a crosswalk light was not necessary.

Jo Jordan, who chairs the neighborhood board's parks committee, favors realigning the highway. But since that could take decades, she wants the state to consider alternatives that could save lives in the short term.

Jordan said if a crosswalk light isn't feasible, the state should at least install road signs alerting oncoming motorists that they are nearing a pedestrian crossing, and to slow down.

"I mean, how much could that cost?" she said.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.