11/30/22 #kihei
As we roll into 2023 with a new Mayor and some changes to the County Council as well as new legislators at the state, what can be done to address this long standing need for our district. For the past decade this has been the most requested issue from our community and KCA has done everything we can to advocate for it.
In that time we have had continued administration declarations that completion would be achieved in a future date, but as the date approached it was postponed over and over again. We have been advised continuously for the past decade that design work for the segment between Kaonoulu and Waipuilani was being done.
We testified at Mayor’s annual budget hearing for years where we heard positive feed back and encouragement like this.
https://gokihei.org/government/how-will-south-maui-do-in-the-2017-budget
But when the Mayor delivered the budget to the Council, our district’s percent of Capitol Improvement Projects (CIP) funding was minimal each year.
In 2020 we were advised by Dept. of Public Works that design work was nearing completion and construction would be in 2022. The next year, 2021, there was a public presentation by Munekiyo-Hiraga clearly illustrating the plans for these next two segments as shown here, but now it switched to 2024.
https://gokihei.org/environment/nscr-construction-date-now-two-years-later-2024-for-next-segment
A few weeks later Maui Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) advised us it would be 2025.
We see unconnected segments pop up seemingly with no plans for connectivity, like this stretch in 2015.
https://gokihei.org/environment/pouring-rain-could-not-halt-the-celebratory-opening-of-liloa-friday
A year after this, the greenway was added to the existing roadway south of Lipoa.
https://gokihei.org/environment/way-more-than-a-bike-path-on-liloa
But while officials from both the then Council and Administration walked across the dirt path makai of the community park in 2015 and agreeing a greenway could easily be extended from this point to Welekahou, no action was ever taken.
https://gokihei.org/environment/kca-again-proposes-a-safe-bike-path-in-kihei
Meanwhile we see S. Kihei Rd. especially in N. Kihei crumbling and deteriorating. There remains no sense of urgency to get the North-South Collector Road in place.
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County has to sell a bond, build the road in one go, at lowest cost, and ding developers to pay it off. It’s not that complicated. Today’s approach, which goes a foot at a time, is the highest cost, longest time approach. Even spiders don’t build their webs over a period of years…
Most of the segments constructed were charged to developers who built a project in the area. The most recent segment was from Armstrong, running North off Kulanihakoi, but even that does not have a complete sidewalk not bike lane, much less a segregated greenway.
For years there was a condition on the land at SW corner of Kaonoulu & Hwy to build a complete street when it was developed. But once Betsell sold the land to PWC of Idaho, who proposed an affordable rental project, that condition was removed. Result is a dead end roadway with sidewalk on one sode