For decades, North Shore residents and visitors have complained about a traffic bottleneck at popular Laniakea Beach, where beachgoers darted haphazardly across two-lane Kamehameha Highway.
Now, after months of on-site work, adjustments and negotiations, some residents say the situation has improved, but more needs to be done down the road to ensure public shoreline
access.
A 200-foot-long parking area on city land mauka of the highway reopened Monday after being closed for more than three months due to dangerous, muddy conditions caused by heavy rain.
During the closure, the state Department of Transportation reconfigured crosswalks, roadside barriers and traffic signs that had been added before the area was opened up to parking in November.
The city Department of Parks and Recreation filled in potholes with crushed coral, “(which) ultimately, we placed over more than just the pukas,” Nathan Serota, DPR spokesperson, said in a text message.
“I think HDOT and the parks department did a great job,” said North Shore resident Blake McElheny, a member of Save Laniakea Coalition, one of several plaintiffs who won a temporary injunction in a 2014 lawsuit demanding that public parking, which had been blocked off in 2013, be reopened with crosswalks, traffic signs and a one-way entrance and exit at either end.
“I would say there was
little to no congestion,” McElheny said Wednesday after driving past Laniakea at about 1:30 p.m., adding that he had seen pedestrians safely using the crosswalk, which had been relocated along with several barriers, at the plaintiffs’ request under a settlement agreement
overseen by Circuit Judge Jeffrey Crabtree.
However, McElheny said, traffic and safety issues needed similar fixes at Chun’s Reef, a nearby beach park with mauka parking that lies to the east of Laniakea in the direction of Waimea Bay.
Ultimately, DOT has prioritized plans to relocate the highway inland at Laniakea, but state Sen. Gil Riviere (D, Heeia-Laie-Waialua) said he is “concerned the current DOT realignment plan may not go far enough; the road should bypass both Laniakea and Chun’s.”
Bill Saunders, attorney
for the plaintiffs, said that while the community “is overwhelmingly in favor” of a highway bypass around Laniakea, settling his clients’ case may be affected by “related issues which may come up in connection with HDOT’s application for a special management area permit and shoreline setback variance.”
He said that in order to comply with state law, DOT must make some provision for parking during construction, as well as upon completion, but had not provided “any commitment to ensure continued access to the beach there” in its environmental assessment and responses to public comments.
DOT spokesperson Shelly Kunishige said in January that the agency is completing environmental documentation on the realignment of Kamehameha Highway at Laniakea Beach and anticipates putting it out to bid as a design/build project
in the fall. Once bids are awarded, construction moving the highway
100 feet inland would take 18 to 24 months, she added.
As the tourism industry predicts a return to 10 million visitors a year, “the
issue is not just transportation, but that Hawaii needs to find a way to meet the needs of residents to enjoy our beach parks,” McElheny said.
