LIHUE — Challenging times, state Department of Transportation consultants say, lie ahead for Kauai.
The Garden Isle is expected to face a nearly $2.2 billion shortfall in transportation project funds at a time when it will also face a significant population and economic boom.
“It is important to establish priorities, because there is a lot of need but only so much money, so you’re going to have to pick something — whenever you pick something you must also not pick something else,” Paul Luersen, project consultant for CH2M Hill, said at a public meeting Thursday in Lihue. “There’s way more need than there is money.”
And that, state DOT consultants and officials said, is what lies at the heart of a regional plan for Kauai, which will guide land transportation decisions for the federal-aid highways on Kauai through 2035.
By that time, the estimated cost to address identified transportation needs would be nearly $3.2 billion, according to a 2011 estimate cited in the draft DOT report.
The island, however, is only projected to receive less than $1 billion in future state and federal funding, leaving the region with a potential $2.2 billion funding shortfall.
During that same time, the island’s population is expected to grow by over 30 percent to 85,200 residents by 2035. The most significant growth, according to the report, is expected in the Lihue and South Shore areas of the island.
But those aren’t the only areas, according to the report, that are targeted for growth.
In the future, employment positions islandwide are expected to grow by nearly 40 percent by 2035. Air and harbor passenger arrivals to Kauai will also increase by about 20 percent compared to today’s visitor numbers.
“In the future, traffic is expected to increase due to a larger population, more jobs, and new land developments on Kauai,” a draft version of the DOT plan for Kauai now reads. “Travel times between communities would increase, and vehicles on both highways could experience long delays and slow travel times. Because these facilities would not be able to handle the expected traffic, they are identified as a transportation need/deficiency.”
Kaumualii Highway on the west side of Lihue now carries over 36,000 vehicles every day in both directions, while Kuhio Highway to the north carries over 36,000 vehicles per day, according to DOT estimates cited in the plan.
Volumes on Kaumualii Highway between Lihue and Kalaheo, in particular, are expected to increase by over 30 percent by 2035, resulting in road conditions characterized by “poor operations with long wait times or extreme congestion.”
“Based on the high estimated cost of addressing Kauai’s priority transportation needs, the region will need to make hard decisions about where to invest and where to allocate funding,” the report reads.
“The reality of limited funding with competing needs must be examined closely so that dollars are effectively spent to best meet the identified goals and objectives while addressing transportation system deficiencies.”
Some residents, however, argue that they have waited as DOT officials outlined transportation plans and projects for the island but either never followed through with those plans or finished them slowly over the years.
Bob Bartolo said a Kapaa relief route has been in the works for at least a decade.
Over that time, he said, state DOT officials spent millions of dollars conducting plans and study for the route, which has not yet broken ground, providing very little relief for those who have been waiting for it.
“We’ve been talking about it for years, right, and all of this is really interesting because we’ve heard it a hundred times, but what are we going to do about it?” said Bartolo, who has worked on the Kapaa Business Association’s traffic committee for the past two decades. “Now is time to do something about it. We keep getting these requests asking what our priorities are over and over again and we keep saying it’s the same priorities but nothing happens.”
Lawai resident Ben Sullivan, who sat on a DOT citizen advisory committee charged with helping to definite those priorities, said Kauai is expected to receive only about $630 million for transportation projects between 2011 and 2035, based on historic funding levels from the state’s Highway Division.
Those figures, outlined in the plan, make up only a small fraction of the $3.5 billion needed to implement all solutions for projected transportation deficiencies.
“In my view, and maybe I’m mistaken, but this seems to be a plan that is really directed at just getting it by on federal dollars as opposed to actually planning because it’s really about meeting the steps that are required,” Sullivan said. “I think it’s evident that we don’t have funds.”
Picking and choosing which projects to move forward with, some officials say, is no easy task.
“It’s tough decision — it’s a really challenging decision,” CH2M Hill Project Manager Kathleen Chu said. “Everyone struggles with it. There’s just not enough money, so hopefully this plan establishes, at least for the next 20 years, what some of those priorities are. We also want to make sure that anything that does get done that we’re accountable for.”
Kauai County Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura agreed.
“We’ve been spending a lot of money on projects that we may never be able to complete, so that’s the question — how do we set our priorities,” Yukimura said.
• Darin Moriki, county government reporter, can be reached at 245-0428 or dmoriki@thegardenisland.com. Follow him on Twitter at @darinmoriki.
