Bikes, pedestrians deserve full access to Kaimuki streets

This is, quite literally, the point at which the rubber should meet the road — bicycle-tire rubber in particular.

The city is trying to proceed carefully in its plan to resurface bumpy Waialae Avenue, a thoroughfare that offers a prime opportunity to expand the island’s minimal network of dedicated bicycle lanes. Last week the city Department of Transportation Services conducted a three-day traffic study along the corridor to gauge the effects of removing a motor-vehicle lane, which would be needed to accommodate bike lanes on either side of the street.

The city will spend two months evaluating the data from this study, officials said, adding that the businesses and the general Kaimuki community then would be consulted. That time frame should be accelerated by doing both analysis and consultation concurrently, with the aim of using all that information to guide the resurfacing project, now slated to start in January at the earliest.

The main sticking point seems to be the loss of parking stalls between 8th and 11th avenues, which has raised some concern from the flanking businesses there. But on balance, creating more safety for cyclists and pedestrians — who also benefit with the reduced vehicular traffic — outweighs that concern for the long term. The city should look for ways to increase the density of parking in the public lot makai of the avenue to compensate, an expansion that has long been needed by the community.

For the resurfacing project itself, the city has a few options, but the ideal outcome would be incorporating bike lanes on both sides of the street. There are two reasons for backing this approach. One is that the location makes sense. Waialae Avenue is precisely the area that needs cyclist accommodation because it connects with Kalanianaole Highway bikeways and leads to the University of Hawaii Manoa campus, also increasingly becoming a bike-friendly zone.

Secondly, bikeway expansion is enshrined in the City Charter. The charter was amended by popular vote in 2006 to make bikeways part of the city’s transportation-services responsibility. The City Council should go further and enact a "Complete Streets" policy to ensure that transportation planning considers needs of pedestrians and cyclists along with those of motorists.

But the logic behind Waialae Avenue lanes should be evident, even without that transportation-planning policy in place.

There are three alternatives. The first two are to do nothing or, a little better than nothing: Paint what are known as "sharrows" on one lane in either direction. Sharrows is a term combining "shared" and "arrows" signifying that the lane is to be shared by vehicles and bikes. This has been tried with some success in other cities, the arrows generally incorporating large, eye-catching bicycle icons as a reminder to motorists that it officially is a bikeway. Visual prompts are helpful, but not optimal if enhanced safety is the goal.

The third alternative is a combination: Dedicate a bike lane at least in the Koko Head direction and put sharrows on the westbound side. The eastbound traffic is headed uphill, and cyclists particularly need this insulation when they’re going slower.

Honolulu is at a difficult juncture in its transition to becoming a safer, less car-centered community because the bikeway network has not yet reached a tipping point needed to entice more people out of their cars. But the tipping ought to start here, and there’s no reason to make it a half measure. Kaimuki, where residences and businesses already lie within easy walking and cycling distance, would benefit from bikeways, and the city should seize this opportunity to provide that help.