KILAUEA — The Hawai‘i Department of Transportation will pause roadwork in Kilauea next Monday, following widespread complaints from residents who said the construction caused excessive traffic delays.
KILAUEA — The Hawai‘i Department of Transportation will pause roadwork in Kilauea next Monday, following widespread complaints from residents who said the construction caused excessive traffic delays.
It was not immediately clear if HDOT’s decision to halt the project until January 2022 was due to these complaints. Department spokespeople declined to provide further information when contacted by The Garden Island on Monday, but claimed a public announcement is forthcoming.
Resident Ken Hughes has become very familiar with the construction on Kuhio Highway between Kapuna and Wailapa roads.
“I’m a mobile computer tech, so I’m driving around all over the place,” he said during an interview. “I have a pretty good feel for what normal construction delays are. That one has been anything but normal.”
Hughes claims it’s taken him up to an hour to pass the road reconstruction and resurfacing project because heavy equipment needs to cross the only open lane on a too-frequent basis.
The road work cannot take place at night during shearwater fallout season, which runs from Sept. 15 to Dec. 15. During this period, young endangered seabirds can be fatally confused by artificial lighting as they take flight for the first time.
“I just think that somebody really didn’t realize just how bad the backup was going to be during daytime,” Hughes said, describing the situation as a perfect storm: “It’s day when it should be night; they’ve got the heavy equipment going into the open lane too often; and there’s more cars than they anticipated. It just snowballed.”
feel your pain dealing with traffic,We on the East and South side had as bad a delay Monday,
They were mowing the grass alongside Kam Hwy from Puhi animal park for several miles and closed one lane which backed up traffic for over 4 miles. Can you imagine bumper to bumper from the Tree Tunnel to the animal park? Well over an hour delay to mow the grass which wasn’t necessa !!! All the crying of losing tourism revenue for over a year and now the tourists are back, but cant get through that area for close to 2 hours!!! Do the commuters a favor and work at night!
Kam hwy? Wrong island duder
Thank you for taking care of the shearwaters first.
This is the responsible thing to do
MaHalo
We all know why the work is stopping, and it’s not due to resident complaints, because they don’t care about the residents. It’s the Holiday tourist season!
So very true Doug, hit it on the head.