Growing pains
HAENA — Just down the road from Haena State Park, visitors are parked on the side of the road in a group of four vehicles. They’re illegally parked. It’s something that residents are dealing with on a daily basis and are hoping to get more help with.
“They’re asking the residents if they will help regulate,” said one woman who preferred to be called Aunty Luis. “To hell with that. We’re tired of regulating your stuff. Get out here and regulate. You make all these signs and you don’t do anything. Park the cop car and the tourists park all around him, under the no-parking signs.”
For at least one couple attempting to ride the new shuttle service on the recently reopened Kuhio Highway on the North Shore, there was still confusion on Friday.
Carol Cullen and her husband Jeff Cullen from Massachusetts were not aware of the weekend closures at Waipa Bridge and had booked their shuttle ride two weeks in advance.
“Again, we just want to go over what our options are — we want to go to Tunnels Beach,” Jeff Cullen says to Hoku Cabebe, who is helping give visitors information on the shuttle services and how to enjoy the park respectfully.
“You can get to Tunnels from Haena,” Cabebe tells the couple who are visiting the North Shore on one of their last days of vacationing on Kauai. “There’s no parking by Tunnels so you have to park at Haena and walk down to the ocean. It’s a short walk and you’ll see the next beautiful reef where everybody is hanging out.”
The Cullens ended up driving a vehicle into the state park for their visit after finding the shuttle service to be “a little confusing.”
“We bought the tickets and then they said Friday was closed,” Carol Cullen said. “But then they took them back and then we got shuttle ones and then I said to the group, ‘we have shuttle ones. Is it closed or is it open?’”
The couple said it was nearly impossible to bring a group of five through the shuttle based on not knowing the area and the return times that were available.
“If you’re hiking, it’s tough to know how long it’s going to take if you have never been here,” Carol Cullen said. “So if you’re signing up for four hours, are you going to be back in time? If you sign up for eight hours, is that too long? So I think it’s really, I understand you guys are probably trying to figure out how to do it, but it’s hard for someone who doesn’t know.”
For Acting Project Manager Jeremy Burns, there is still a learning process that everyone is going through with the new shuttle.
“Good things, I think for the most part,” Burns said. “People are taking the shuttle, we’re selling out on our reservations and stuff we’ve been doing so far. We noticed a few changes. People are wanting to come in in the morning and not leave until the sort of afternoon or evening-ish, so we’re adjusting our operations to accommodate that and see how that works.”
Burns recognizes the shuttle is still in its infancy.
“I think as we continue to get things dialed in, we’ll expand our shuttle capacity and get more people in here and hopefully give everyone that excellent visitor experience that everybody really wants to do as part of the entire Haena master plan,” Burns said.
For Jibade Sandiford, this was the first time he has been to the North Shore since it reopened in June. He’s waiting for the shuttle in Waipa, the first time he has ridden it.
“It’s just that they change the details on the fly, so these rules are constantly this nebulous — what the ticket derives to allow you to go into Haena versus is it a hop-on or a hop-off, or do you have to have a schedule?” he said. “Even from last week to this week, they completely changed that policy in particular. I understand also due to the fact that the hurricane and wanting to protect and be tightly controlled, as well as what is happening and the amount of people as well as also managing conservation as well as preservation.”
In his experience, Sandiford saw the entire shuttle ticketing process as a bit of a pain, but understands the shuttle is going through the startup process.
“It certainly is frustrating, and two things could be true at the same time,” he said.
Waipa lot attendant for the North Shore Shuttle Chris Critchfield sees it as a positive that the shuttle has been effective in taking cars off the road at the busy state park.
“There are 24 people every half hour or 45 minutes on the shuttle all day long. That’s how many (fewer) cars that equals out to at the end of the day,” Critchfield said. “I did the math at the end of the day once and it’s around 200 to 250 people.”
In addition to taking cars off the road, Critchfield sees firsthand how the shuttle is taking an active role in educating the general public.
“We make it simple,” he said. “Most of the people don’t live here, and when they get here they are goggled. When I first got here I was just looking at everything. So we take advantage of that and we just usher them on the shuttle and make it as simple as possible. Get them in and get them out without hassle.”
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Ryan Collins, county reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or rcollins@thegardenisland.com.
Do any of the tourists seem like they know what’s going on? They’re changing the rules daily. Won’t be long before people start saying it’s too much trouble or too confusing and start going to Big Island instead. Some people will say who cares if they go elsewhere, but most of the people on Kauai depend on tourism. Screwing up the north shore could do significant damage. Jeremy better step up his game.
Once again, locals are trying to “police” the parking. YOU DO NOT OWN the beaches or the parking! Stop trying to scare off visitors, they have been funding Kauai for decades! If there are official “no parking” signs, not homemade ones, then that is a different thing. And yes, if they are truly illegally parked, then the real police should be taking notice, not the “Aunties” and the real police also should not ignore local vehicles parked in “no parking” zones. All laws apply to EVERYONE, not just visitors!
It was reported that up to 3,000 people per day were using Haena before the flood. Not sure this was accurate.
The “new plan” was to limit visitors to 900 per day.
70 visitor parking stalls per day allow for maybe 200 visitors.
The shuttle can provide up to 200-250. If you see the shuttle pass though, mostly you see it on the empty side.
Somehow the parking lot at Haena State Park is never full.
So less than half the goal is being accommodated.
Parking at Haena County Park has been taxed by people walking to the State park. No special local parking there.
Most of the “turn arounds” end up at Lumahai as a result and it is packed. Not a great place for a lifeguard tower. Other north shore neighborhoods are also carrying the displaced visitors.
So it takes 3 park rangers and a 1.5 million dollar shuttle (thank you property owners) to get these results.
Get the math?
What a travesty that the county planning department, in its infinite wisdom (not), shut down the Mahuiki’s who were allowing, for a fee, people to park on their empty lot. This accommodated at least 30-40 cars, thus reducing the strain.
Government is incompetent and short-sighted and only added to the parking problem by this inept action.
RG DeSoto
“how to enjoy the park respectfully.”
Please. Do you think Kauai is the only place on earth with a “park”? How condescending can you get.
“That’s how many (fewer) cars that equals out to at the end of the day,”
And that’s how we keep score now. I’ll tell you this, it’s good that we don’t keep score by the number of shuttle busses that go in and out of Haena…that number has skrocketed since the road opened!
What’s the matter North shore tired of of accommodating all these tourist??
Hahaha..
What happened to the aloha spirit these self righteous Haoles like preaching to the Hawaiians about. When had more Hawaiians liveing in there everybody welcome as long as you don’t block anyone’s driveway. Now get more Haoles they making up there own rules and regulations. Aren’t those precious tours the ones you make your profit off of
Get off your high-horse.
As anyone can see, whomever put up this “Kamaianina only” sign is doing something completely illegal. Only the state can put up a “no parking” sign on public land. For the past 100 years, parking has been legal at Lumahai Beach. The reality is that the locals want to be able to go to these world-class beaches without having to acknowledge that these beaches belong to the whole world. The joke here is that whomever put up the sign is almost certainly not even a true “kamainna” – it’s probably a mainland transplant who came to Kauai in the 80’s or 90’s, probably bought a home that was occupied by real locals, kicked them out, turned it into a vacation rental for a few years before finally living there, and now screams long and loud about “disrespectful tourists”, and now considers him or herself to be a “kama”aina”. The greatest hypocrites in the world can be found among the North Shore locals.
To the author of this article: the ONLY park on the North Shore that requires a parking pass is Ha’ene State Park. All the rest are free parking.
The photo accompanying this article is quite misleading, as it was shot at Lumahai and not at the Haena, Tunnels, Kee where the parking problems are still being worked out. The sign saying “Kamaina Only” is something posted by a local person who understandably would prefer to keep visitors off this beautiful beach. Granted ignorant, uneducated visitors are often loud, inappropriate and disrespectful of the aina. That being said I am also constantly appalled at the lack of respect shown by locals for the aina. How about printing a photo of a dog defecating on the sand or in the Lumahai stream. Only locals own dogs that are required by county law to be on a leash except when on the owner’s private property, not visitors. Visit Lumahi on just about any morning and you’ll find the remains of a party fire smoldering in the sand with garbage and beer cans dumped in the pit. Locals or visitors? If you want respect for the aina, then model the same respectful behavior. As I said, understandably locals would love to keep the north shore for themselves. Who wouldn’t? Reality tells me that this ain’t gonna happen.
You practically have to have a Ph.D. in Kauai to understand wtf is going on right now. You’ve turned the North Shore into Disneyland. Have to tried to go to Disneyland? With kids? And tried to figure out where to park, what rides to stand in line for? What ticket packages to buy? It’s frustrating and not why people visit Kauai at all. I see it as a money grab, plain and simple. The parking was an issue down near Ke’e beach, for sure, and the paved parking lot will help, but the lack of access and the raising of prices, already, shows visitors that they think they are visiting paradise, but they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.