City and state agencies have a chance to make a quantum leap in the goal to make Honolulu more bikeable and walkable with two unrelated but compatible projects.
There are design details and costs to nail down before a final plan can be inked, but officials should take the chance to seek affordable ways of implementing these projects, exploring possible private partnerships among the options.
The projects in the hopper are:
>> The first link expanding the fledgling existing network of bike lanes and the King Street cycle track, possibly as early as this spring. The expansion would involve a bike lane along South Street, starting at Ala Moana Boulevard. There it would connect to the track, which has been a controversial feature because it is separated by curbing and takes up more space.
>> A pedestrian and bicycle bridge across the Ala Wai Canal. The link would connect the University of Hawaii at Manoa with Waikiki. This amounts to another useful expansion of the planned bikeway network, since a bike lane already runs up University Avenue.
This latter proposal was floated last week by the Waikiki Neighborhood Board, but it adapts an idea discussed in the city’s 2013 Waikiki Regional Circulator Study.
That plan, funded by the city and the Federal Highway Administration, had proposed building a connection between University Avenue and Kalaimoku Street, on the makai side of the canal.
The neighborhood board conceives the link as a pedestrian and cycle bridge, citing estimated pricetags between $5 million to $11 million. A more accurate cost range would be needed — on the lower end, it is hoped — but there is the potential of forging a private partnership that could trim the taxpayers’ burden.
In particular, Hawaiian Electric Co. recently was ordered by the state to bury more deeply one of its underwater cables to avoid conflicts with future canal dredgings. HECO could instead connect its cables to the underside of the bridge and avoid some of the steps required for the underwater route.
The utility seems willing to partner if the city moves on the bridge project.
Neighborhood board members have vowed to seek advancement for the project among city officials, and they should move on that impulse.
The project makes sense on several fronts. Cyclists and pedestrians could avoid making their trip longer with the circuit around the canal. And the bridge offers undeniable safety improvements: They would no longer need to tangle with traffic or wait needlessly at signalized intersections that are invariably congested.
It also would mesh nicely with the full buildout of the city’s bike plan. The South Street lane is encountering less community resistance because the city changed its blueprints to make accommodations for businesses along that route.
Next in the plan is the addition of a bike path along McCully Street. That could happen by the end of this year, but the city will need to work with local businesses to mitigate the impact of removing curbside parking.
Additional bikeway spurs are envisioned for other mauka-
makai corridors, such as Piikoi Street and Ward Avenue.
If the initial canal crossing works, other pedestrian-cycle bridges could be considered, connecting Waikiki to Ala Moana, Kakaako,
McCully, Moiliili and Kaimuki.
The resulting pedestrian and bike network, nearly 8 miles in length, would be a welcome addition to the city’s still-fledgling
Bicycle Program, which proclaims on its website the city’s determination “to making Oahu a bicycle-friendly place.”
The city made a commitment to such ends by adopting its Complete Streets policy in 2013. These projects seem like logical next steps.
