KAILUA — Twenty-five loulu palms that greet people as they drive into Kailua town were plucked from the landscaped median yesterday as state contractors began an eight-month project to reduce the risk of falling rocks from a hillside along Kailua Road.

Workers removed plants from several hundred feet of median to make way for a temporary second lane of traffic. One of the two Kailua-bound lanes has been closed since March 31 after heavy rains caused several rockslides on Kailua Road, just before Hamakua Drive.

"We're hoping the second lane will buy us some time with the design and right-of-way issues we have to resolve," said Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

The temporary lane could take two weeks to a month to complete, Ishikawa said. The rockfall mitigation work could begin as early as August and be completed by February, he said.

Paula Ress, president of the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle, said the state took the 25 palm trees to a nursery, where they will be cared for. The palms will be replanted in the median when the rockfall mitigation work is done.

The median landscaping was installed in two phases by the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle in the early to mid-1990s at a cost of about $120,000. The design included fan palms, naupaka bushes and an irrigation system. Money raised at the annual I Love Kailua Town party paid for the projects and their upkeep.

The Outdoor Circle had obtained a permit to install a third landscaping phase late last year and was about to begin the project when rocks and boulders started falling onto the road in February and March, during record rainfall that lasted more than 40 days.

Ress said the state, in addition to agreeing to replace the existing plants, will install the third project that would have cost the group $150,000.

"That means we have funds for another great project," Ress said, adding the Lani-Kailua Outdoor Circle is considering additional median landscaping on Kailua Road and other projects.

The temporary lane will cost $479,000 and the rockfall mitigation project is budgeted at $4 million, Ishikawa said.

Ishikawa said the new lane is needed to accommodate afternoon rush-hour traffic, to allow for more construction space during the mitigation portion of the work and to address concerns of bicyclists who objected to riding on the other side of the highway, against the flow of traffic.

The sidewalk will remain closed and pedestrians will have to use the other side of the highway during the project, Ishikawa said.

The state is looking at a project that could incorporate methods used at the Castle Junction and Makapu'u Point rockfall mitigation projects.

At Castle Junction, where work dealt primarily with a dirt hillside, the state sloped the hillside. At Makapu'u, a rock hillside, the state hung a net to restrain falling rocks.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com.