A safer bikelane on a roadway

 

UPDATE 3/7/23  More green in Lipoa Bike lane

 

These

These additional street makings in the Lipoa bike lane are a big improvement

 

UPDATE  3/4/23

It has been almost two years since we broached the concept of painting a bike lane GREEN in our central area. Then district council member Kelly King budgeted $10k for a public-private partnership pilot project. But the then administration kept adding more and more responsibility to the private entity, KCA, to where it  became impossible for our all volunteer, non-profit entity to take on. So in order to get it done, King moved the funds directly to the County Dept of Public Works but nothing happened…until now.  Do you recognize the location? It is manini action, but is a start/

 

Yes that is Kihei El on the right side of Lipoa heading up the hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7/31/21 #Kihei

For several decades, Kihei was planned to be a “walkable-bikeable” community, as is frequently mention in our 1998 Kihei-Makena Community Plan (which can be viewed on this website).  But like much in the plan, it was never implemented. There has yet to be a contiguous sidewalk on S. Kihei Rd. (SKR), but now we are addressing the “bikeable” portion of the term.

For us, safe bicycling for our entire community, keiki to kupuna, really means a segregated bike path, like the great, but oh-so-short path on Liloa.

But as the north portion of the North South Collector Rd. (NSCR), which this parallels, is at least another decade away, next best are very well marked bike lanes along local roadways. This means more than a solid white line along a road shoulder, but bright green painted lanes, which are used in countless locations. Here are a few examples of existing ones.

We have requested some existing bike lanes be painted like this in Kihei with little success. But this year, thanks to our Councilmember Kelly King, there is funding for a grant to purchase the paint and materials for such a pilot project in cooperation with the County Administration’s Dept. of Public Works (DPW).

This is a public-private partnership and DPW will only select an appropriate location and is not responsible to apply the paint.  So we are trying to formulate a plan for community cooperation to proceed through the county granting process to free up the funds for DPW to purchase the paint and related materials. Once that is accomplished we will be seeking professional help to physically apply the paint for the lane. If you are interested in participating, please let us know.