Question: What criteria are used to determine what roads are repaved in Mililani? They’re repaving a lot of small side streets that are still in good condition, yet the main avenues, such as Meheula Parkway and Kuahelani Avenue, are a thousand times worse and look like three-dimensional patch quilts. The uneven, rough, potholed and patched Meheula Parkway is especially bad and remains untouched. Right now my street has signs that indicate it will be paved soon, and it does not need it! What’s up with this? Is someone following a timetable rather than looking at the roads? When is Meheula Parkway scheduled for resurfacing? (Combination of four complaints.)
Answer: In the case of Mililani, it was a matter of timing and funding that resulted in the less traveled roads being repaved before the main thoroughfares.
Meheula Parkway was not scheduled to be repaved until 2014 to 2017 under Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s ambitious five-year roads repair and repaving program announced in February.
However, the Meheula paving project has been moved up because “we managed to get the project out to bid at the tail end of (the last) fiscal year,” said Chris Takashige, director of the city Department of Design and Construction.
On July 19 Grace Pacific Corp. was awarded the Meheula contract. However, Takashige explained that the contract does not officially start until the city issues a “Notice to Proceed,” which will happen after all the required permits are obtained.
Permits have been taking about six months to be approved. Once they’re approved, the contractor will begin planning for work on Meheula, Takashige said.
“Our current expectations are that construction will start between next spring and summer,” he said, with the full reconstruction of Meheula taking one year to complete.
Regarding work on streets that aren’t in terrible shape, Takashige said that wasn’t the plan for the Mililani area. But under the new repaving program, “we received the go-ahead for the entire Mililani at the same time.”
While most of the side roads in Mililani did not require the “full-depth reconstruction” that Meheula does, the design, specifications and contract documents were completed
“well ahead of the much more difficult, full-depth design required for Meheula,” Takashige said.
That resulted in work for the side roads getting in the “queue” for contract awards before Meheula.
Takashige also explained that work on the side streets would not be combined with work on Meheula, “because they require totally different types of reconstruction” and “different sets of drawings and specifications.”
Repaving Program
The list of roads planned for repair and repaving through 2017 can be found at hsalinks.com/17C0O1y.
You can also click on specific streets on a road repaving map to see what’s planned around the island, as well as get an update of projects completed since January.
Mahalo
To everyone who responded when our father experienced a medical emergency May 5 aboard United Flight 2733. My parents were on their yearly trip to the mainland, to visit three different states. During the flight to Phoenix, our father became ill, and the plane ended up making an emergency landing in Los Angeles. Thank you to all the people who helped our parents, including an EMT responder, an air marshal and several United flight attendants. Our father was tended to by the best heart doctors in L.A. and is doing well. I thank the Lord for every person that consoled my parents when we couldn’t. They wake up every morning together, and “Daddy-O” is walking one to two miles a day and Mom is being the best housewife and mom ever! Consider yourselves all angels. — Leilani Taylor-Paiva
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