Six months after announcing an ambitious push to fix the city streets in most need of repair, Mayor Kirk Caldwell says work remains on course to repave 300 lane miles of degraded road on Oahu this year.
Road crews have repaved 139 lane miles across the island since Jan. 1, according to a June 30 Department of Design and Construction report the Star-Advertiser obtained.
The city has 25 repaving projects totaling $200 million that are either in progress or about to start, Caldwell told the City Council in a Wednesday letter — part of his administration’s second quarterly update on the repaving project. Twenty of those projects were initiated after he took office, Caldwell stated.
"We’re close to 150. It takes a while to ramp everything up, I mean, it’s really ramping up," Caldwell added in an interview Wednesday. "We have some major contracts that are ready to be put out to bid that are large, significant amounts of lane miles. Everyone has assured me we’ll be on target."
That 300 lane-mile target is part of a larger goal to repave 1,500 of the city’s more than 3,500 lane miles during the next five years, while applying slurry-seal to streets in moderate condition so they will last longer.
The project follows an earlier era of neglected road repairs that left Honolulu with some of the worst streets in the nation and cost its drivers an average of nearly $600 in annual added car repairs, according to 2011 data from the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research firm TRIP. For years, local drivers have been tormented by potholes across the island.
In 1994, for example, the city paved only 45 lane miles across the island. In 2001 it paved 150. But by 2004, that number had slumped to 60 lane miles.
Now, the city is looking to play catch-up on delinquent repaving work. Some of the continuing projects include repaving in McCully and Moiliili, Kaimuki, Kailua, Ewa Beach, Hawaii Kai and Mililani. Upcoming projects include work on St. Louis Heights, Kalama Valley, Portlock and Kaneohe, among others. Oahu residents can find updates on the city’s repaving plan at www1.honolulu.gov/ddc.
In the first quarter of 2013 the city reported paving 77 lane miles. In the quarter ending June 30, it paved 62.
The city has gradually raised its road-repaving budget in recent years to fix more streets. It budgeted $77 million in 2012 and $100 million this year, despite concerns that officials overseeing the city’s roadwork wouldn’t be able to get all that money out the door quickly enough.
For the coming fiscal year, in 2014, Caldwell wanted to boost the repaving budget to $150 million. The Council approved $120 million. Caldwell says he plans to ask the Council to make up those funds in 2015, with a budget of $180 million for repaving.
"No money is going to lapse," Caldwell said Wednesday. "In order to do it in five years I’ve got to get 300 (lane miles a year). If I don’t get all the money, it’s six years or seven years. The problem is other roads are falling apart. I’m trying to get ahead of the curve."
In his letter to the Council, Caldwell reported that all of the $77 million from 2012 has been locked into contracts. More than $61 million of the $100 million budgeted in 2013 has also been encumbered for repaving work, according to city documents.
