Status of improvements to Hwy. 130?

[hotinhawaii]

Does anyone know the schedule for improvements to Hwy. 130? Specifically, the doubling of lanes and redoing the culverts near the Keaau merge and the installation of roundabouts at the Pahoa intersection and intersections with HPP. I though I read that a roundabout was being installed at Pahoa this year. Any updates or links to the information would be appreciated. And please, stay on topic.

[Rob Tucker]

Overall the Hwy. 130 renovations are expected to take eight years. I understood that the first phase, Bottleneck to Shower Drive, should have started already. The contracts were due to be let last November on phase 1. I am wondering when it will start too. I have been told that the recommendation for HDOT was to complete the Shower Drive section and then go to the other end for a roundabout at Pahoa.

[james weatherford]

The 'Humane Society-to-Shower Drive' section (STP 28) was scheduled to be in motion already. This project, in my observation, was shoved through to meet some ends. Some folks, when looking at what is proposed, state, "they're just moving the bottleneck". Many places in the FEA falsify information and to an extreme. There are errors in the arithmetic calculating costs. There many misrepresentations of information. These many problems have drawn some strong criticism and this has undoubtedly slowed it down. There are also some thorny issues with some (HPP lot owners) common ownership land at Shower Drive. The contract has not yet gone out to bid. For 2.3 miles, the latest estimate of the rising costs is $24 million, and that is with the second south bound (mauka) lane being a temporary like the second north bound (makai) lane is now. There has never been any public meeting on this plan.

The other project (STP 27), from Shower Drive to Highway 137 (signal at Pahoa school), is much bigger and scheduled for construction over an 8 year period. This project has a good deal more credibility. There was an extended public consultation process. While I could point to some less-than-great aspects of that process, it did happen, it was open, and the final recommendations reflect community-identified issues and none of that happened with STP 28.

[punaticbychoice]

As always James, thank you for helping to clarify the issues and status.

[Greg]

I agree that they are just moving the bottleneck a little more towards Puna. I also am perplexed that if they think that this is any solution; Why not do it for millions less?

That stretch of road is already three lanes wide, with two going to Hilo in the morning rush. Why not just install some signs, lights, paint stripes, and change it to two lanes Puna bound in the afternoon?

Same result, much, much, less expensive.

[wax]

Part of the problem is the bridge that needs to be rebuilt. But the cost is way out given an average of most projects at about $5 million per mile.

[Rob Tucker]

I can recall, ten years or more ago, when two years of highway work resulted in wider shoulders on the road. Somehow I thought they were adding lanes. I was a bit jealous of the vendor supplying orange traffic cones. There were thousands of them for a couple years ongoing. I concluded that highway projects were largely milking parlors for contractors to fill their buckets and come back for more a few years later.

Most famously, for those who have not lived here a long time, the short bridge over the channel to the Hilo harbor is famous (infamous) for taking longer to build than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

[Obie]

Maybe they should hire this company.

Wasatch Constructors will reconstruct 186 lane-miles of I-15 between 600 North (downtown) and 10600 South. This will include widening the existing freeway to six lanes in each direction, as well as constructing 135 bridges, 190 retaining walls, 41 sound walls and the relocation of frontage roads and local streets along the corridor.

This project was done in Salt Lake City in 4 years.

[punaticbychoice]

Procurement reform and contract administration.
Understand everyone?
Public information about who gets what and why.
We're paying for it, we need to know.

[robguz]

With the census figures just released, this is depressing and unbelievable. Even if completed tomorrow it would be a non-solution and with the added light is likely only to make my commute longer in both directions. Given that there could be another 10,000 people using this road every day 8 years from now, just wow! I sincerely hope I find I decent job that is not in Hilo before then.