Māmala Hoa: the name of Kamehameha I's famous law
which guaranteed the safety of the highways to all
--as women, children, sick and aged.
Shortcut to Waimea Traffic Circulation Plan Web Page
South Kohala Traffic Safety Committee
Please attend the South Kohala Traffic Safety Committee (SKTSC) meetings held on the second Tuesday of the month at 4 pm at the Waimea Civic Center (near the police station). For information, e-mail Mike Price at whao@hawaii.rr.com or call him at 883-2918.
The following communications have been received by the SKTSC:
Introduction
South Kohala residents, workers commuting to jobs on west side, and visitors alike agree that the traffic situation in the region is unacceptable. A great variety of roadway projects have been proposed to deal with different aspects of the mess, with a primary focus on providing alternative routes for both local traffic and cross-island traffic around the "choke point" of the Lindsey Street intersection (the intersection of Kawaihae Road and Mamalahoa Highway).
Strong arguments are made both for and against some of these projects, rendering them controversial. Moreover, sufficient sources of funding have not yet been identified (due to intense competition for funding by projects elsewhere on this island and on other islands, whose traffic situations are a mess, too). Hopefully, the information presented here will allow you to form an opinion and motivate you to express it.
Understanding Local Traffic Patterns
Want to understand our the current traffic patterns in Waimea? For a graphical presentation, please click on the following link:
How Should the $10 Million Be Spent?
The County has $10 million of county money from a county bond issue to spend on reducing traffic congestion in Waimea. The County wants to hear directly from you about how that money should be used. The options that have been mentioned so far are: (1) build the Mamalahoa Hwy-Kawaihae Rd Connector Project (to see alignment options on map click here), (2) allow Parker Ranch use the money to build the Waimea Town Center Connector Road between Mamalaoha Hwy (near the racetrack) and Kamamalu Rd or Mamalahoa Hwy (near the police station) earlier than it is obligated to do so (with Parker Ranch paying the money back as it builds out its Waimea Town Center subdivisions so the Mamalahoa Hwy-Kawaihae Rd Project can be built), (3) widen Mamalahoa Hwy through Waimea Town (now that the timing of traffic signals has been optimized), and (4) allow the State to use the money to extend the State Waimea Bypass to the west of Mamalahoa Hwy, where it is currently planned to terminate (and connect with the State Kawaihae Rd Bypass in the future).
As a part of the South Kohala CDP process, the County is funding a traffic circulation study that to help the community and the County Council decide how to spend the money. Here is a link to current arguments for and against each option:
Please express your opinion on the larger questions directly to the County:
Roy Takemoto, Special Assistant to the Mayor
County of Hawaii Office of the Mayor
25 Aupuni Street Rm. 215
Hilo, Hawaii 96720
Phone: 961-8211
Fax: (808) 961-6553
E-mail: roy_takemoto@co.hawaii.hi.us
Bruce McClure, Director
County of Hawaii Department of Public Works
101 Pauahi Street, Suite 7
Hilo, Hawaii 96720-4224
Phone: 961-8327
Fax: 961-8630
E-mail: BMCCLURE@co.hawaii.hi.us
Feel free to send a copy of your correspondence to County Councilmember Pete Hoffmann:
Pete Hoffmann, Councilmember
Hawaii County Council, District 9
North & South Kohala
64-1067 Mamalahoa Hwy., Suite C-5
Kamuela, HI 96743
Phone: 887-2043
Fax: 887-2072
phoffmann@co.hawaii.hi.us
Thank you for your participation in the effort to solve Waimea's traffic problem.
On-going Roadway Projects
A number of roadway projects are on-going in the region. To download maps of proposed South Kohala road and trail projects, please click on the following link:
To view a presentation about proposed South Kohala transportation projects in a web page format, please click on the following link:
Projects are organized by initiating entity in the following sections.
Parker Ranch Projects
For information related to the proposed Parker Ranch-funded Waimea Town Center Connector Roads, please click on the following link:
County of Hawaii Projects
For information related to the proposed County-funded Mamalahoa Hwy-Kawaihae Rd Connector Project, please click on the following link:
For information related to the County-funded Waimea Traffic Circulation Plan, please click on the following link:
For information related to the proposed County-funded Lindsey Road Bridge Replacement Project, please click on the following link:
State of Hawaii Projects
For information related to the proposed State-funded Waimea Bypass highway, please click on the following link:
For information related to the proposed State-funded Kawaihae Rd Bypass highway, please click on the following link:
For information related to the proposed State-funded Waiaka Bridge and Intersection Replacement Project, please click on the following link:
The U.S. Department of Defense is currently funding the State Saddle Rd Project which will reconstruct and realign the existing Saddle Rd which extends from Mamalahoa Hwy near Waikoloa to Kaumana Dr in Hilo. (See information below about the State Saddle Rd Extension Project.)
U.S. Government Projects
For information on U.S. Government funded road projects, please link on the following links:
Possible Issues
Our community may decide that our community development plan should address the following issues:
With the Waimea Bypass being built, how do we keep our downtown an attractive place for tourists and residents to shop and dine?
A deal is near for the harvesting and making into veneer or chipping of 20,000+ of eucalyptus trees on the Hamakua Coast with trucking of the veneer or chips through Waimea. How much will local truck traffic increase? How can our community prepare for the increase in truck traffic?
When the Hilo landfill closes, leaving only one landfill on the west side of the island, at least a portion of the garbage generated on the east side will have to be shipped through (or around) Waimea. How can we minimize the impact?
How should we accommodate the traffic that will occur when (and if) the Superferry (and other smaller ferries) begin operating out of Kawaihae Harbor?
How can we safeguard the safety of the children (and adults) who use the sidewalks along the roadways in our busy town?
Is installing more apparently uncoordinated traffic signals the solution, or part of the problem?
Should the State and/or County be identifying and reserving corridors for a future light rail system as is occurring on Oahu and Maui? Should the corridor for a light rail system that would eventually serve Waimea follow the alignments of the Waimea Bypass and the Kawaihae Road Bypass?
Public meetings will begin soon to discuss proposed routes for the Waimea Bypass and the Kawaihae Bypass. Do the proposed routes make sense? How can they be coordinated with local connector roads?
What do current plans say?
The Hawaii County Planning Department has provided the following background information on our traffic problems, the roots of which extend well beyond our region:
Locally-directed plans were developed for the roadways of our community in 1977 and 1986. The answers to the following frequently-asked questions about the plans reveals that a lot has changed:
Which of the collector (aka "mini-bypass") roads being currently being discussed was mentioned in a plan?
The 1977 Plan and a map in the 1986 Plan propose a connector road be built between the Kohala Mountain Road and Mamalahoa Highway (actually the map shows connections to Kawaihae Road near the Transfer Station and to Mamalahoa Highway near the Parker Ranch race track).
Although the plans called for Lindsey Road to be extended to the south (to the mythical Waimea Bypass), no plan proposed that Mamalahoa Highway be connected to Lindsey Road other than at the existing intersection. The 1998 Parker Ranch Waimea Town Center Plan does call for a new east-west road to be built though the town center to Kamamalu Road south of the Civic Center.
While the 1977 Plan (but not the 1986 Plan) called for a bridge over the Waikoloa Stream at Church Street (Keck), neither the 1977 Plan nor the 1986 Plan calls for associated east-west road improvements (the line on the map designating a boundary between two land use designations, and not a road). A schematic map in one of the 1993 Waimea Main Street documents shows an east-west road running from Opelo Road over to Spencer Road.
Which north-south roads do the plans propose to be connected to the Waimea Bypass?
Why does the 1977 Plan proposes that a bridge be built over Waikoloa Stream at Church Road?
The bridge was to be built to provide access from Mamalahoa Highway to a then-proposed Kohala Mountain Park. That park does not appear on current General Plan maps.
Learning Center
To learn more about the principles and practices available to address the issues mentioned above, click on the following links:
Context Sensitive Solutions: Thinking Beyond the Pavement - Context sensitive design (CSD) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that involves all stakeholders to develop a transportation facility that fits its physical setting and preserves scenic, aesthetic, historic, and environmental resources, while maintaining safety and mobility.
Streets and Sidewalks, People and Cars: The Citizens' Guide to Traffic Calming
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