HALEIWA (KHON2) — A long-awaited highway project is set to begin on Oahu’s North Shore on Monday, and officials are advising drivers to be patient.
For years, North Shore residents have been frustrated with the traffic gridlock at Laniakea, a popular tourist beach. As hundreds of people cross the highway to get to the beach, traffic begins to build for miles.
On Saturday, it took some people a half hour to drive 1.4 miles.
“It was pretty bad, it took me 30 minutes to get here from Haleiwa,” said surfer Gration Lachlan. “We sat in traffic for like 25 minutes,” said another surfer.
After years of lawsuits, environmental studies and planning, the state Department of Transportation will begin work to shift the highway mauka.
“It’s really simple actually, we’re going to take this parking lot and move it to the makai side of the road, so people don’t have to cross back and forth and stop traffic,” explained state Rep. Sean Quinlan (D) Waialua, Haleiwa, Kahana, who has been hearing the complaints and working on a solution for decades alongside former state senator Gil Riviere.
Starting Monday, Nov. 4, the state DOT said lanes on Kamehameha Hwy may be closed to allow the contractor to work, resulting in delays. Work is expected to go from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, with possible Saturday closures.
State DOT Director Ed Sniffen said the goal is to alleviate traffic as much as possible.
“The drivers can expect no change right now, we have a lot of work to do off the highway itself,” Sniffen said.
He said the first steps include removing the back fence area so contractors can get through and building a new bridge in the area to grade out the new highway location and set up new drainage.
“You won’t see any impacts until we start connecting back to the highway on both ends,” he explained. “Because we’re moving the highway another 50 to 90 feet, no matter where you measure from it’s quite a bit of work, but even when we connect we don’t expect contraflow for too long it’s just going to be the connection work that has the major impacts and for those, we’ll try and do work at night as much as possible.”
He said there is no date yet on when the highway connection will begin and depends on the contractor’s work.
The new highway will end about 1,000 feet past the current exit, and at some point parking won’t be allowed at Laniakea as the new highway goes through the area.
“It’s going to be a while until we do that and we’ll get it out to the public with at least a month’s notice before we have any impact on that,” Sniffen continued.
Once the new highway is finished on the mauka side and connected to the existing highway, he said work will begin on the makai side.
“We’ll reset parking and part of doing that is repurposing some of the existing highway in the area, so we may be removing some of the asphalt in those areas, putting in more landscaping, to turn it into a smaller beach-traffic kind-of lane instead of a larger highway piece,” he added.
The entire project is expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete.
Many people said they’re excited for the project to begin and don’t mind not being able to park in the area because it means less people will be out surfing.
“It’s been so long and I think the community will be happy because it will be safer,” said surfer Keith Kai.
“It’s dangerous you have to start watching out for people from up the road because people are always crossing and sometimes when people are driving they’ll hit the breaks so you have to stay back,” he continued.
Within one hour on Saturday, three cars were rear-ended near Laniakea.
“I was in Haleiwa waiting to turn at the light and I got rear-ended,” said Laclan. “I didn’t even stop quickly, we stopped and then five seconds later a guy slammed into me.”
Another truck pulled into the parking area with a busted tailgate and the guy told his friend, “I was just rear-ended.” His friend told him, “me too.”
“I didn’t stop that hard, we were in normal traffic and the guy rolled right into me, but as you can see the damage isn’t ideal,” said Liam Oei.
“It’s because of the stop-and-go traffic, they need to expand this highway immediately, without a doubt,” he continued.
Police were also seen assisting a woman and child in a separate rear-end incident down the road.
Rep. Quinlan cautions the new realignment will help but won’t solve the North Shore traffic woes.
“We have to be really clear-eyed about this,” he said. “But I think it will significantly improve traffic.”
There are also plans to limit parking once the new parking lot is complete with a viewing platform.
“Not many people want to go down to the beach, it’s kind of a dangerous beach, and the farther we can keep the visitors away from the turtles, I think the better off we all are,” Quinlan said.
He hopes to limit parking up to 50 stalls and allow for residents only to park there, and work on a shuttle service for visitors from Haleiwa to Laniakea.
Sniffen said he appreciates the public’s patience on this project. “Now we’re doing to do a project that ensures we can keep the highway safe from shoreline erosion, and make sure we can keep pedestrians safe by keeping them on the makai side of the road versus crossing it, I think this will be better for everybody.”