Crews complete Kahala water main repairs; all lanes to reopen today
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Eastbound traffic along Kalanianaole Highway remained heavy and slow-going late into the evening, Monday, in east Honolulu. Board of Water Supply crews this morning have completed repairs to the 24-inch water main that broke on Kalanianaole Highway early Saturday.
Board of Water Supply crews finished repairs to the 24-inch water main that broke on Kalanianaole Highway early Saturday. Officials expect all eastbound lanes to be open by noon today, the agency said.
The pipe was repaired as of 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to BWS. Crews are working on backfilling the area around the pipe, filling in the excavated area and prepping for paving. Additionally, crews are flushing the line and testing the water.
Officials reopened a second lane from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday on the highway for eastbound commuters. Crews then closed the second lane to continue repairs.
Officials have implemented a traffic mitigation plan that will allow vehicles traveling eastbound in the afternoon peak hours additional green light access through the Ainakoa Avenue intersection. The state Department of Transportation has placed message boards to alert motorists of lane closures and road work. Additionally, DOT has suspended all road construction projects on major arteries in East Honolulu and Waimanalo until further notice.
The city Department of Transportation plans to monitor traffic lights and make adjustments as needed. Honolulu police will also direct traffic through the area this afternoon.
Crews have been working since Saturday to fix the pipe, which is made of cast iron and was installed in 1969. The broken water main on the highway between Kilauea Avenue and Waikui Street caused gridlock over the weekend. Repairs had been expected to be completed by Thursday.
21 responses to “Crews complete Kahala water main repairs; all lanes to reopen today”
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Good job BOH. Repair completed ahead of schedule.
My compliments to the Board of Water Supply. To all involved, you performed above the call! Mahalo!
agree..it could have been worse.
Good to hear, 5 days is WAY too long to fix and repair a waterman break.
Amazing how both the Gov and mayor said NOTHING about fixing our Infrastructure. INCOMPETENCE at all levels of government in Hawaii.
Yeah, would’ve been nice to hear from our great leaders. I mean Dave Shoji and Nick Rolovich. I don’t know if they can do anything about our infrastructure, but they can at least inspire us. And no one else seems to care about the infrastructure…
before you guys go patting bows in da back a rise in sewer charge will be factored in to pay for this
The sewer charge is not from the Board of Water Supply even though it’s on the billing. It’s The Dept. of Waste Water that charges for the sewer.
why you splitting hairs?…….it’s same same ……must be you get something to do with bows
I have nothing to do with either bows or the waste water dept., just setting the records straight. And if you didn’t know bows is really not part of the city, it’s not even on the city web site. BOW is semi-autonomous govern by board members made up of community leaders, that much I know.
damia, the BOW does what the mayor wants. And we know whats coming from them.
Damia: Just like Cladwall has nothing to do with the Oahu rail project because it is run by ‘semiautonomous’ HART. No surpise every election there is always a vote to create a new ‘semiautonomous’ agency to perform an established City function or State function. Same people in charge still pulling the strings only the semiautonomous agency gives them more B S cover from accountability. This scam has been going on for decades in Hawaii.
Atta way to go BWS. I actually thought would pass Thursday. Glad I was wrong. Mahalo.
I thought the traffic mitigation plan instituted on Monday was excellent. Nice job DOT.
It would have been even better if it had been implemented on Saturday but we can’t expect city decision makers to work on weekends right. HPD caused massive inconvenience for residents on Saturday/Sunday and were flooded with complaints. They could have mitigated traffic from the start but they choose not to so as to avoid an additional work load. Cops don’t like to direct traffic if they can avoid it, which they did until they couldn’t anymore. Shopo is running HPD nowadays.
Great job for so deep a buried pipe. For those armchair quarterbacks at home who complain about lack of maintenance on buried pipes, please tell us how. How do you propose to inspect and maintain buried pipes without constantly digging up our major roads just to inspect? Anyway, thanks BWS, especially the crews, for a job well done.
I agree, digging up miles of roads to inspect pipes for maintenance will cause more traffic all year round.
Not sure but many things have a life span. No need to inspect if item is 70 years old. Just schedule for replacement which should have been done.
Only sewer lines are inspected and maintained. Water lines are replaced due to age or when they break.Some of the water lines on the island are more than 100 years old. You’d think they would replace them on a schedule but our incompetent elected officials say we can’t afford to.
If that happened on the westside it would take weeks to fix and their wouldn’t be any traffic mitigation efforts.
Geographic profiling? Get real.
That was fast.