A spate of tickets issued against bicyclists this week in the heart of town has revealed a puzzling gap in Honolulu’s growing bike-lane network, even as transit leaders push to make the city more bike-friendly.

Honolulu police Wednesday surprised about 10 cyclists during a two-hour enforcement effort, issuing tickets to those traveling by bike on a relatively small but frequently ridden stretch of sidewalk that fronts the Frank F. Fasi Municipal Building.

That 90-foot stretch of sidewalk, near the corner of King and Alapai streets, separates two key bike lanes: the King Street Cycle Track and the Civic Center Bike Path, which then connects to downtown Honolulu.

It’s illegal in Honolulu business districts to ride a bike on the sidewalk, but city signs and arrows that are directed at cyclists and point at the sidewalk near the Fasi building "seem to indicate that you’re doing something OK" by crossing it there, said Daniel Alexander, who serves as the nonprofit Hawaii Bicycling League’s advocacy, planning and communications director.

For instance, a large painted white arrow at the end of the King Street path, where the bike lane crosses Alapai Street, points Ewa-bound cyclists directly at the sidewalk apron. The signs and arrows don’t explicitly say that cyclists can use the sidewalk. But posting them there when cyclists are not permitted to ride on the sidewalk is "inconsistent with the way such signs are used" — and causes a lot of confusion, Alexander added.

"It was kind of an oversight that this happened," he said of where the bike paths and the sidewalk converge. This week’s police action showed that clearly there’s a design problem there.

Police conducted the enforcement between 7 and 9 a.m., after they had received complaints from pedestrians, according to Honolulu Police Department spokeswoman Michelle Yu. Yu wasn’t sure when the department had fielded those complaints, or whether they came after the King Street protected bike lane became bidirectional in May, opening the lane to Ewa-bound riders, not just those heading Diamond Head.

HPD has a $16,000 state grant to enforce bicycle laws, Yu said. In light of the confusing situation encountered at King and Alapai streets, "we’ll take another look at locations and enforcement plans," Yu said. She wouldn’t go as far as saying that the department would refrain from future enforcement there. "We’ve got to reassess," Yu said.

City transit leaders say that they aim to solve the problem by eventually extending the bike lane alongside the sidewalk in question.

In the meantime, for Ewa-bound cyclists to continue riding legally once they hit the end of the King Street Cycle Track, they can cross over to the Ewa side of Alapai Street, head mauka on that street and then access the Civic Center bike path from behind the Fasi building, city officials say.

Cyclists can also dismount their bikes when they get to the sidewalk, walk to the Civic Center path and then resume riding, they say.

The glitch in bike connectivity comes nearly two weeks after Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced plans to install by the end of 2015 a second protected bike lane in the heart of town, along South Street. The South Street protected lane would connect to the King Street Cycle Track right where HPD revealed the problem with the sidewalk this week.

It would also be the first of several new mauka-makai bike lanes that city transportation officials aim to connect to the King Street lane, forming a grid. They hope linking up protected lanes will encourage more commuters to use bicycles instead of cars as the island’s population grows and traffic worsens.

Bike lane "connections are so important, and our understanding is a connection was in place," Alexander said of the area in front of the Fasi building. "It’s something in Honolulu that we’re constantly working on, is creating those connections," he said, so that cyclists don’t opt to ride on sidewalks to avoid riding in potentially dangerous streets.