Work crews will round out 2013 having repaved a record 392 lane-miles of crumbling city road across Oahu, capping year one of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s publicized push to fix the island’s streets, city reports show.
The tally comes from a Dec. 20 Department of Design and Construction list of continuing and finished street projects. Caldwell pledged in his mayoral campaign last year to make road repairs a priority, and he set a goal in February to pave 1,520 lane-miles of degraded road in a five-year period, averaging 300 lane-miles of repaving a year.
The city has been releasing quarterly reports on its repaving efforts ever since. In October, when the last report was released, Caldwell touted the 317 lane-miles repaved at that point as already having exceeded any work done in any previous year on the books.
However, he added that many of the street repair projects done this year were relatively easy fixes. The city anticipates tougher projects next year that will require digging up asphalt at greater depths and using cement to restore streets up on ridges.
Any gains beyond 300 lane-miles this year could prove key to help keep pace with the five-year goal, especially if fewer lane-miles are repaved in the coming calendar year.
Caldwell asked for $150 million for road repairs this fiscal year, and the City Council appropriated $120 million. His administration plans to ask for $150 million again for the coming fiscal year.
Drivers — and their wallets — have felt the pain of neglected roads and deferred repairs for years. A report by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit transportation TRIP ranked Honolulu’s roads the 13th worst in the country, estimating the average local driver spends nearly $600 a year due to the streets’ poor conditions.
In addition to the city efforts, the state Department of Transportation began this fall what will likely be a yearlong effort to repave a heavily used 3.5-mile stretch of the H-1 freeway from Ward Avenue to Middle Street — a project agency officials said was long overdue.
The Dec. 20 city report shows that crews this year completed road repaving projects in McCully/Moiliili and Makiki, on Kapiolani Boulevard, in Kailua and in Pearl City and isolated projects scattered in other neighborhoods.
Crews will continue next year the work to repair King Street in Chinatown as well as streets in Hawaii Kai, Makiki, Kailua, Kaimuki, Mililani and other parts of Oahu.