Bulldozers line the Kuilei Cliffs at Diamond Head Beach Park, where the main beach access way, a paved public footpath, has been plowed up and cut off by a high fence since Feb. 4.

Signs on the fence warn that the area, which lies under the jurisdiction of the city Department of Parks and Recreation, is closed for an improvement project to prevent cliff erosion and rock slides. Beachgoers are directed to Beach Road, which remains open to pedestrians only at the ‘Ewa base of the cliffs. The nearest parking spaces are uphill, just past the lighthouse.

A city news release Feb. 1 said the project should be finished by autumn.

Despite the keep-out signs, beachgoers traverse the restricted area.

On Monday evening by the lighthouse, surfers Oliver Asskild and Lars Klausen trailblazed their way up the hill through kiawe forest. Asked how the closure had affected them, “Not much, really. It’s a bit more difficult,” said Asskild, a Norwegian student at Hawaii Pacific University.

Farther east, a large plastic sand bucket sat on the roadside wall as a father helped his 6-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter climb over. A Honolulu resident who didn’t give his name, the father said he was surprised to find the path closed. “But we went down anyway,” he said, pointing with a smile to the way they took, past the keep-out sign. “It’s just dirt, so the kids were sliding a little bit, but they’re always up for an adventure.”

Chris Kono of Kakaako was surprised at the project’s duration. “The waves are good in summer and fall — they coulda timed it a little bit better.”

For himself, he said he didn’t mind, as he was used to taking alternative, improvised pathways down the cliffs, known as “goat trails.”

But he expressed concern about tourists, the elderly, disabled people and children.

“It’s a little bit more treacherous, and now a bit of a traffic jam at times (on the goat trails),” Kono said as he removed a kiawe thorn from his foot.

Area resident Frances White worried about the many Asian tourists she sees as she walks her dogs on the beach. “They are respecting the fencing, but they’re not agile surfers, so they come staggering down the dirt paths, often bringing their children.”

The city is concerned, as always, about public safety and providing open access to the beach and ocean, said DPR spokesperson Nate Serota. “For these reasons, we made sure that the pedestrian access from Beach Road would remain open,” he said, emphasizing that the project is intended to mitigate safety hazards, while signage and park staff warn against using unimproved areas to access the beach.

But surfer Andy Burger, an oceanography researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, observed that increased use of the steep goat trails might pose a safety and environmental risk, as “Any foot traffic contributes towards erosion.”

What about first responders? “We have gone down the switchback trail,” said Shayne Enright, spokesperson for the city Emergency Services Department, referring to the public cliff path. Its closure, she said, shouldn’t affect ocean safety staff, who would respond, as usual, by personal watercraft from Kaimana Beach. “And we’ve been told that ambulances can still go down Beach Road.” Happily, she said, no issues have been reported since the work began.

And when it’s the fastest way to reach someone in distress, “We’ll just have to make it down the side of the cliffs,” Enright said.

Surfer Chad Medeiros of Diamond Head thought the closure might reduce the prevalence of campers in the park. “Maybe it helps move the homeless away because they can’t come driving their mopeds down,” he said. (The hillsides and beach have often been strewn with garbage and human and animal waste.)

Before the work started, “They did a sweep and got most of the homeless out,” White said. She reported that the tents by the now-closed showers at the base of the footpath were gone, though campers’ belongings remained in plastic crates and new tents have gone up “around the corner towards Black Point.”

At the clifftop water fountain and shower, which remain open, a man pulled up on a moped and glared over the fence at the barricaded path. There was a set to his jaw as if he was contemplating an Evel Knievel jump.

As I walked down Diamond Head Road, a half-dozen tents and makeshift shelters were barely visible in the makai forest through the gathering dark.