Question: When is the completion date for the new airport rental car building? What is the total cost to taxpayers for the work going on at Honolulu Airport?
Answer: The first phase, called 2-A, of the new Consolidated Rental Car Facility at Honolulu Airport is scheduled to be completed and operating in May.
This $43 million phase involves converting the east side of the existing Overseas Terminal parking structure to accommodate car rental operations as an "Interim CONRAC," a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation said.
Phase 2 will involve construction of a new CONRAC structure, at an approximate cost of $250 million, on the Diamond Head side of the existing Overseas Parking structure. The targeted completion date is October 2017.
When completed, the new five-story structure will consolidate all rental car companies servicing the airport.
The CONRAC construction is part of Honolulu Airport’s $750 million modernization project, which is part of the $2.7 billion statewide Hawaii Airports Modernization Program.
The project began in 2013 with work on a new employee parking lot, Aloha Air cargo facility, Hawaiian Airlines cargo/maintenance facility and Diamond Head commuter terminal.
Work on the consolidated rental car facility began in 2014, while work on the mauka concourse and widening of taxi lanes G and L are scheduled to begin later this year.
Funding for the entire Hawaii Airports Modernization Program is coming from airport user fees (airline rents and landing fees), federal grants, passenger facility charges and airport revenue bonds (to be paid back with airport user fees). State general funds will not be used, according to the DOT.
For more information, go to hawaiiairportsmodernization.com.
Question: Are Handi-Vans allowed to load and unload passengers in a marked no stopping/loading/standing area? Recently the city put up "No Stopping, Standing, Loading," etc. signs in front of the medical building at the mauka end of Kapahulu. This was a welcome action because delivery trucks were causing a dangerous situation for cars and pedestrians there. Twice now since the signs went up, I have had to skirt around a Handi-Van loading wheelchair-bound passengers right in front of the new signs. There is room for them to pull into the covered parking to pick up and drop off, and this seems to be a really dangerous practice for all involved.
Answer: As "special transit service vehicles," the city’s Handi-Vans are allowed to load and unload passengers in that otherwise prohibited area.
Two sections of the Revised Ordinances of Honolulu allow for the unloading of passengers or freight in a no-parking zone, said Michelle Yu, spokeswoman for the Honolulu Police Department.
Section 15-14.8 says parking is prohibited when official tow-away zone signs are posted saying no person "shall stop, stand or park a vehicle, even momentarily" during the hours indicated.
However, if it is not during the morning or afternoon peak traffic hours, exceptions are given to vehicles displaying a valid decal "for the expeditious loading or unloading of freight"; to buses in an official bus stop "for the expeditious loading or unloading of passengers"; and by a special transit service vehicle "for the expeditious loading or unloading of a mobility handicapped passenger."
Yu also cited Section 15-14.5(a), which says, in part, "When official signs are erected giving notice of the prohibition against parking, no person shall stop, stand or park a vehicle any longer than is absolutely necessary to take on or discharge passengers or freight."
Mahalo
To a kind and honest woman who turned in my blue class ring that I had lost at Ross Hawaii Kai after trying on several blouses. I called Ross the next day and was so happy to learn that someone had turned it in to the lost and found. May she be blessed with good health and happiness. — Thelma T.
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