A second access road for Makakilo’s 20,000 people, long delayed, is essential for both safety and traffic congestion management issues. Given the disaster in Lahaina, the Makakilo Drive Extension (MDE) is a critical safety issue.

In early 1993, residents received a Campbell Estate magazine, “A City Comes Into Being: Kapolei 1993.” A graphic showing the long-range road plan included an H-1 interchange for what is now Kualakai Parkway. It included a roadway extension from the upper end of Makakilo Drive to that interchange. Significantly, it showed only agricultural land on both sides of the parkway, an area that is now heavily developed and includes the University of Hawaii-West Oahu campus and many new homes. as well as the entry point for Skyline rail.

In March 2001, the Transportation for Oahu Plan (TOP) 2025 showed the MDE as a city Department of Transportation Services (DTS) project, estimated at $8.5 million. Castle & Cooke new homes development later extended the Drive, dead-ending about 4,000 linear feet from H-1.

In 2005, the MDE project was the No. 1 priority that the Citizen Advisory Committee of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization (OMPO) recommended to OMPO’s Policy Committee. That policy committee (now Policy Board) schedules all roadway and transit projects in the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP).

The project was in the TIP when DTS sponsored MDE Advisory Committee meetings in 2007 and 2008 with local residents, leaving the extension projected for an environmental assessment in November 2008, final plan in January 2009, design start in May, and construction start in 2011, with development in two years. The new cost estimate was $61 million.

As residents waited, the MDE somehow disappeared from the TIP during the next decade as new DTS projects surfaced. An example is widening of Salt Lake Boulevard — “nice to have” but not essential.

We’ve lost track of the number of new roadways developed on the Ewa Plain that were not on the Kapolei long-range plan or even in the TOP 2025. Adding to our frustration, the Hawaii Department of Transportation completed the H-1 Interchange for Kualakai Parkway in January 2010, leaving townbound commuters from Upper Makakilo with daily roundtrip commutes anywhere from two to ten miles longer.

OMPO’s Policy Board — made up of state legislators, City Council members, transportation directors and planners — has continuously sidelined the MDE project. City Transportation Director Roger Morton cited limited funds preventing inclusion of the MDE in the TIP.

Despair reigned until early this year, when Revision 11 of the current TIP included more than $545 million in federal funds from the Bilateral Infrastructure Law allocated to (unspecified) Oahu road projects.

With renewed energy, we testified to Mayor Rick Blangiardi at a town hall meeting and he met us later in Makakilo to discuss MDE safety and congestion management. We also pointed out that the extension would have a positive impact on rail ridership, with a bus feeder to the Keone‘ae (UH-West Oahu) station about 1-1/4 miles from the existing end of Makakilo Drive.

The mayor indicated funding could be found; however, OMPO is funding transportation alternatives such as bicycle and pedestrian projects — including a $64 million bridge over the Ala Wai Canal. Apparently, drivers no longer have priority on Oahu. The Lahaina disaster reminded us of a past brush fire on top of our Makakilo hill fought by many fire trucks. Had the single access been blocked, we would probably have lost many homes.

We no longer want to hear why the Makakilo Drive Extension project cannot be done, Mr. Mayor; just tell us how you will do it.

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This was co-signed by fellow Makakilo residents Deborah Agles, Mark Colburn, Edward Ryglewicz, Rita Shockley and Clyde Vierra.

Michael Ferriera is Transportation Committee chair for the Makakilo/Kapolei/Honokai Hale Neighborhood Board; he is a resident of Makakilo, as are Frank Genadio and John Shockley.