Morning traffic on Highway 130 heads towards Hilo. A meeting to discuss a  project to widen the highway for the afternoon return trip for commuters into Puna was held Friday (May 21). Photography by Baron Sekiya | Hawaii 24/7

By Rod Thompson | Special to Hawaii 24/7

A state project is moving forward to widen a two-mile section of the Keaau-Pahoa highway from the area of the Humane Society at Keaau to Shower Drive at the northwest corner of Hawaiian Paradise Park, state officials and consultants said Friday morning (May 21).

The project, to be completed in about two years, would relieve late afternoon rush hour traffic at the bottleneck which slows traffic to a bare crawl past Keaau High School, said Ed Sniffen of the state Department of Transportation.

But the work would have no effect on safety at various dangerous intersections where streets from Paradise Park and Orchidland meet the highway. That stretch of the road will be improved in a separate project at an unknown future time.

Despite the difference between the two projects, most of the two dozen or so people gathered at the community center in Paradise Park commented on the safety hazards of the area between Paradise Park and Orchidland rather than the more immediate project closer to Keaau.

A Final Environmental Assessment for that two-mile project has been completed. The $14 million project would go out to bid later this year, and about 15 months of construction is expected to start early next year, Sniffen said.

In contrast, the larger project from the area of the Humane Society to Pahoa would cost anywhere from $20 million to $136 million depending on the option selected, according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

The two projects overlap. The two-mile project would convert the existing “shoulder lane” on the makai side of the highway to a standard lane and would create a new makai shoulder through the purchase of adjoining land and widening, the Final Impact Statement says.

The two-mile project would also create a new shoulder lane on the mauka side of the highway. That new lane would give relief to late afternoon traffic.

But not being a standard lane, it would eventually require widening when the larger project is done.

The cost comes out to $14 million for just two miles because of various details needed to make the project work.

The old shoulder lane paving would be dug up and replaced, Sniffen said. To create a new shoulder, the rocky edges of the road would have to be dug away. Power poles would be moved.

And the existing bridge near the three-mile marker would be widened.

At the Paradise Park end of the project, a permanent traffic light would be installed at the intersection where Shower Drive enters the highway from the makai side and Pohaku Drive enters from the mauka side.

That brought negative comment from several members of the audience who would prefer a roundabout which slows traffic but does not stop the flow.

Sniffen responded, “We really like roundabouts.”

But the transportation department has no roundabout anywhere in the state highway system and is being cautious about where they install the first one, he said. They don’t want to install one, have it cause problems, and then be used as an excuse not to install any more, he said.

In addition, installing a roundabout at the Shower-Pohaku intersection would require a redesign of the project, which would push the project into the next administration of the person elected governor in November.

That might result in the money, which is now available, being diverted to another project elsewhere in the state, Sniffen said.