Bus riders traveling to and from the Windward side are frustrated that commute times are taking significantly longer — some double the amount of time since the closure of Pali Highway.
“My daily commute from Kailua to downtown and back has been ridiculous so far this week on the bus,” said Kailua resident Kevin Unten. He said one day the bus was over 50 minutes behind schedule. “I’m going to go crazy if this continues till the work on the Pali Highway is completed.”
Windward lines 55, 56, 57, 57-A and 65, which run all day, and Windward express buses 87 and 89, operating during peak hours, have been rerouted to the H-3 freeway, which “provides a more consistent travel time during the day,” according to the state Department of Transportation Services. The Pali reopened to one-way traffic during the peak morning and afternoon hours after being completely shut down Monday following multiple landslides that brought debris onto the roadway, injuring a 40-year-old woman and two girls in a vehicle.
BUS ROUTES AFFECTED
>> No service on Pali Highway between Vineyard Boulevard and Castle Junction in both directions.
>> Buses will utilize H-3 freeway to travel between Honolulu and Windward areas.
>> Windward lines 55, 56, 57, 57-A and 65, which run all day, and Windward express buses 87 and 89, running during peak hours, have been rerouted to the H-3.
Source: State Department of Transportation Services
The closure is expected to last months while state crews fortify the slopes near the Pali tunnels. Nuuanu Valley is the most affected, with no bus service on the highway between Vineyard Boulevard and Castle Junction in both directions. All buses, except for Route 4, have been diverted. Instead of running through Nuuanu, the buses are heading to town via the H-3, H-201 and H-1 freeways.
“People have complained that their trip has been taking longer, but we are traveling a longer distance. The buses don’t have a magic bullet that takes them out of the regular traffic,” said Jon Nouchi, deputy director of the Department of Transportation Services. “Our buses are caught in the same traffic that automobiles are. There’s nothing we can do about that. We can’t run through the Pali.”
The DTS said it is working with the state to make alternative plans that include sending buses in the morning contra-flow for town-bound commuters from 5 to 9 a.m. and afternoon contra-flow for Windward-bound traffic from 3 to 7 p.m.
But other routes are also affected.
Sara Finegray, 20, said her regular bus between her home in Kailua and school in Kaneohe is taking up to an hour longer just to arrive.
“It was super frustrating. I was contemplating just calling a Lyft,” said the Windward Community College student. “It has impacted (my life) pretty heavy because I’m reliant on the bus to get to and from school, and it’s honestly made me a bit scared that I might be late for my classes. Yesterday I actually caved in and took a Lyft to school because the bus was so late.”
Nalani Allen, 30, was waiting downtown Friday with her mother and 3-year-old daughter, Sienna, for the bus to Kaneohe to visit her 10-year-old son. It took Allen, who lives in a clean-and-sober house in Aiea, about three hours round trip to Kaneohe this week, compared with the 40 minutes it used to take traveling on the Pali.
“I’ve been going for the past week, and it’s been crazy,” she said. “It goes all the way around, then coming back from Kaneohe it takes even longer ’cause we’re going through Pearl City. I live in a clean-and-sober house, so we have to be home before 10 p.m. When I get back to town, it’s like almost 9 ‘o clock. It takes a lot of time, especially if you have kids.”
Allen’s mother, Darlene Stitt of Salt Lake, meets her downtown, and they usually ride together. Stitt has degenerative disc disease in her spine, which causes severe back pain.
“I have a bad spine, and that means sitting down longer and it does hurt. I have problems just from Salt Lake to here, so I was just barely making it,” she said. “Now it’s gonna be a longer sit down or stand up for me.”
Nouchi said the DTS is coordinating with the state to try to bring “as much normalcy to the Windward routes” as soon as possible.
“Traffic is like water. What happens is if one major artery goes down, the rest of the island gets disrupted,” he said. “It’s not just the bus; it’s everyone who travels on this island. We have such limited road space on this island that losing one major artery tends to have an amplified effect on every other highway.”
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