HONOLULU (KHON2) — For the second time in just over two weeks, traffic was backed up for hours on the Waianae coast because of a serious traffic collision. While lawmakers are thankful for improvements being made to help alleviate the problems, they still wonder what else can be done.
“You had Thursday on the cusp of the three-day weekend, folks got off early, this accident happened right as folks were getting off of work at three,” said Rep. Darius Kila. “The road wasn’t open until after five. And at that point, it was traffic on again.”
“Life needs to move on when we encounter these traffic situations,” said Sen. Samantha Decorte. “And right now, when we have a collision, especially in the beginning of the coast in Nanakuli, people are calling out sick at work, kids are not going to school, people are canceling their doctor’s appointment.”
There are a couple bypass roads in the area that were opened the last two instances of heavy traffic, one on Paakea Road from Hakimo Road to Lualualei Naval Road. The other is Helelua Place from Helelua Street to Lualualei.
Both are gated and locked, only opened for emergency situations, and needs to have police officers stationed on both ends.
“It’s not even that long of a stretch, it’s like a couple blocks,” Decorte said. “So don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for whatever we can get. But we have to continue to think forward on what are the other options of relief that you’re going to give the residents.”
“Imagining a Waianae coast without those access roads, traffic probably would have been 10 times worse yesterday, 10 times worse the last time it happened,” Kila said. “So this is not the band-aid solution, but thank God we have it.”
Some issues according to Kila, who is the state House transportation chair, is understaffing at Honolulu Police and isolation of Waianae and Kapolei districts.
“They are doing everything they possibly can, I know,” Kila said. “But this is what happens when the district police department is on the furthest side of the island, they’re not able to necessarily pull from other districts.”
And then there’s the decades old infrastructure.
“These are still the same operational roads, but the only thing changed is the population went from 20,000 to now 60,000,” Kila said. “And it’s hard.”
“The residents just want to know that the state and the city are doing everything possible to provide relief,” Decorte said.