For decades, oceangoers and residents of West Oahu have pressed the city and state to take Farrington Highway off the sands of historic Makaha Beach and move it inland, as had been recommended in a 1998 Honolulu master plan and a 1985 study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Running parallel to and hardening the shoreline, the highway cuts the beach in half, resulting in safety hazards and erosion and runoff that are becoming more urgent with flooding and sea level rise due to climate change, said resident Brian Keaulana, who, like his father, Buffalo Keaulana, was a longtime city lifeguard at Makaha Beach Park.
“It’s so dangerous: You’re parking literally on the road; the canoe hale, restrooms and showers are mauka; and every weekend the kids are running back and forth across the road,” Keaulana said.
Thursday morning, the Keaulana family and others held signs in protest roadside at Makaha Beach as the state Department of Transportation began work to replace two 1930s-era wooden highway bridges and construct a temporary bypass road across the beach makai of the existing highway while it was closed for the bridge work.
The protesters said they opposed the bridge work because “if they fix the bridges, then (due to the money and time expended) we will never see the highway get off the beach,” said area resident Robert “Bunky” Bakutis, adding if the temporary road washed out, residents and tourists to the west would be cut off and stranded.
On Friday their cause was advanced when the state House Committee on Transportation unanimously passed Resolution HR 149, introduced by Rep. Cedric Gates (Waianae), which urges the city and state to reroute Farrington Highway “in accordance with the 1998 Makaha Beach Park Master Plan.”
In an interview, Gates said he used to be one of those local kids walking along and crossing the highway, and that the safety and environmental issues were gaining momentum.
In the run-up to the resolution, “I would say I’ve received 60-70 persistent, really passionate communications on the issues from residents in the area as well as beachgoers in the broader community, and 30-40 more conversations with folks I’ve run into at events,” Gates said, adding that on Thursday he received a paper petition with 72 signatures from the protesters, many of whom also testified at the online hearing.
Gates said that the bypass road over the sand appeared designed to run between two deep ditches and new embankments which could further jeopardize pedestrian safety without alleviating flooding concerns, in light of such catastrophic events as the flash floods that devastated Haleiwa and Kauai last week.
In a March 3 news release, HDOT announced it would begin preparations for the replacement of Makaha bridges No. 3 and 3A, “currently ranked as the top two priority bridges in need of upgrade or repair on the State Highways system,” beginning with clearing the area makai of the existing bridges to prepare for installation of a temporary bypass.
Once installation of the temporary bypass was complete, traffic would be routed there, and the existing bridges would be closed as the contractor worked on their replacement, the department said, reporting the project was awarded Feb. 4 for $19.3 million, with 80% federal funding and 20% from State Highways funds.
Completion of the bridge replacement is anticipated to be in summer 2022.
The resolution, co-sponsored by Reps. Angus
McKelvey and Nadine Nakamura, lists concerns about the bridge replacement and bypass road and states that the beginning of the project this month underscored the urgency of discussing the highway rerouting.
Noting the city Department of Parks and Recreation annually lists Makaha Beach Park as one of the top 10 most visited parks on Oahu, it details the natural, cultural, recreational and historic significance of Makaha Beach, the cradle of modern big-wave surfing, which produced champions Rell Sunn, Sunny Garcia, Rusty Keaulana and Duane DeSoto and where community events such as Buffalo’s Big Board Surfing Classic, Rell Sunn’s Menehune Surf Meet and Bradah Mel’s Waterman’s Championships are held.
The resolution stresses the vulnerability of Farrington Highway, whose “close proximity to the shoreline has resulted in serious damage from storms and waves,” notably in 1983, “when waves eroded a portion of the highway.”
Beach erosion, “caused by rising sea levels and runoff from Farrington Highway,” has led to emergency bulldozing of sand from the east to west ends of the beach by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the resolution states, noting that a 2010 study commissioned by DPR and DLNR’s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands said erosion at Makaha Beach Park posed serious safety concerns.
“We’ve lost a lot of sand,” Bakutis said. “Every five years or so, the waves will come up and really expose all those pilings they’ve put there to try and fortify the road, and washes them onto the reef.”
“When I was a kid, we never had the kind of tides and erosion we have now,” Keaulana said.
He added that the highway and developments in the valley block the flow of natural streams, which used to “create a sand embankment that would reburbish the beach every year,” and periodically broke through to the sea, where “the nutrients used to feed all the fishes.”
Ironically, the highway follows the tracks of a former railroad that carried sand mined from the now-disappeared dunes of Makaha Beach to build beaches at Ala Moana and Waikiki.
HDOT spokeswoman Shelly Kunishige said the department does not have a position on the resolution, but is “looking at making adjustments to the bridge design to minimize impact to the community and shorten time frames.”
HR 149 has been referred to the House Committee on Finance. Gates said this is the third time he has introduced such a resolution, and he is hopeful the groundswell of public support will carry it to victory this year.
If the bridges and highway aren’t moved mauka, Keaulana said, “we’re throwing money into nothing because the road’s gonna go, and we’ll have another bridge to nowhere.”
