Koko Crater safety project now is delayed indefinitely

Bowing to community concerns, city officials on Wednesday agreed to delay a safety improvement project at Koko Crater summit just two days after they announced it was scheduled to start next week.

The $439,000 project would have closed the summit — and the tramway tracks that hikers climb to reach it — from Monday to the end of July.

“The previously announced project atop Koko Crater … will be suspended while the City continues to work with the community on a path forward that will incorporate temporary improvements to the tramway,” the city Department of Parks and Recreation said Wednesday.

The planned closure would have allowed for work designed to ease safety concerns about crumbling World War II-era structures at the summit of Kohelepelepe. The structures were constructed atop Koko Crater in 1942 by the U.S. military and served as a radar station, which was returned to the city when it was deactivated in 1966.

Since then, the installation has “degraded severely,” parks officials said. To address the issues, the project sought to remove debris from tunnels and shafts; seal the shafts, vents, and tunnels; and remove deteriorated steel decking and framing.

The work was not expected to include improvements to the tramway track, a project still in the early planning stages.