State agencies urged to prioritize Farrington Highway realignment in Makaha

Swollen by recent heavy rains, Makaha Stream breached the sands of Makaha Beach and was running to the sea on Thursday, said Bunky Bakutis, who with fellow Waianae residents has for decades been asking the state to realign Farrington Highway — the far west side’s only route to work, school, grocery stores and medical care — by moving it off the beach and well inland as recommended in the city’s 1998 Makaha Beach Park master plan.

The section of highway that traverses Makaha Beach lies in a Federal Emergency Management Agency high-risk flood zone, and in the past, heavy rainstorms have left the road flooded to a depth of 3 feet and impassable for several hours, according to a 2014 Makaha Valley flood mitigation study by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Adding that other threats to the road are flooding and erosion caused by sea level rise, along with surging high tides and the big waves the beach is famous for — all of which periodically undermine the highway and its two bridges — “one of these days, a big storm will wash out the road, cutting residents and tourists off completely,” Bakutis said.

He also noted that pedestrians’ safety is threatened daily crossing the road, which separates the beach park’s restrooms, parking stalls and canoe hale from the seashore.

At a public meeting last week, Bakutis and others learned from representatives of the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization that the realignment of Farrington Highway was not on a list of 20 projects prioritized in a 2045 Oahu Regional Transportation Plan released earlier this month, and that a Farrington Highway/Makaha Beach realignment feasibility study, launched in 2018 as a follow-up to the 1998 master plan, was about to be canceled.

“We need these major improvements to infrastructure, there’s no resilience on our coastline for sea level rise, and realignment isn’t even mentioned in the plan,” said Waianae Neighborhood Board member and Makaha resident Pieter Meinster at Monday’s meeting. “What happened?”

That was a question for the state Department of Transportation, said Kiana Otsuka, transportation planner at the OahuMPO, but although DOT had been invited to the meeting, no representatives were in attendance.

“How do we get on that priority list?” asked Waianae resident Carmen Simpliciano, who collected 1,800 signatures on a petition demanding that DOT realign the highway mauka instead of continuing a $20 million project it started this month to repair the two highway bridges at Makaha Beach.

The petition was submitted to a March 19 hearing of the state House Committee on Transportation, which passed House Resolution 149 supporting the highway realignment and referred it to the Finance Committee.

Otsuka said people could submit comments to OahuMPO by Monday, the deadline for consideration by the agency’s decision-­making policy board at its April 27 meeting to discuss the 2045 transportation plan.

She suggested they propose the Makaha highway realignment be included in a section of the plan discussing Project Number 0-21-12, aimed at making climate/ tsunami/flooding/ sea level rise resiliency improvements all around Oahu, which does not as yet prioritize any locations or specific projects.

Otsuka added people could also comment on the proposed cancellation of the feasibility study by April 16, for the board’s meeting to review the agency’s 2022 Overall Work Program, which says that “in the context of limited funding availability, OahuMPO will cancel (the Makaha Beach Park realignment feasibility) study and transfer the balance remaining to existing work elements that need additional funds obligated,” noting, “as of March 2021, 84% of the total budget for this study is unexpended.”

“If community members have suggestions for locations where resiliency can be improved, we’d like to hear where and why an area could use resiliency improvements,” OahuMPO Executive Director Alvin Au said Thursday in a followup email.

Comments will be shared with DOT, Au said, noting that the city’s Office of Climate Change, Resiliency, and Sustainability and the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services also serve on OahuMPO’s technical working group for the realignment study.

On Tuesday, HDOT spokeswoman Shelly Kunishige wrote in an email the department is “looking at making adjustments to the design” for the Makaha bridges “to minimize impact to the community and shorten timeframes.” She also said the agency lacks funding for a realignment at this time, while there is “significant need to replace the bridges to ensure that residents west of Kili Drive will have continued access to Farrington Highway.”

Simpliciano said she was seeking information as to whether a bypass/detour road DOT planned to construct during the bridge repairs would comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and how any burials in the project area would be detected and protected.

“What is going on in Makaha right now (shows) why it wouldn’t be the best decision to build a temporary road right there, on the natural flow of water from the mountain,” Makaha native Shankara Sanchez said in an email Thursday.

“Hawaiians know what is best for our beautiful home,” added Sanchez, a student at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., but “when people in office make decisions for our aina they do not take into consideration how we people feel and our input.”

Her words echoed complaints of Waianae residents at Monday’s meeting that they feel sidelined by officials turning a blind eye to their community’s needs.

“People are always coming out to Makaha — officials, mayors, senators — saying they’ll help, but nothing gets done,” said Joseph Simpliciano. “This has to change.”

“The DOT gives higher priority to areas with higher population density and higher utilization,” Meinster said, with the result that “community members living in remote areas are playing second fiddle to more economically significant areas.”

The 2014 DLNR flood mitigation report states that “Makaha Valley is a rural community with a high percentage of Native Hawaiians, almost twice the percent compared to the island of O‘ahu”; that Makaha median home values are generally lower by almost half than those of Oahu as a whole; and median income tends to be lower for Makaha households compared to the median household income for the island, while the percentage of people living below poverty level is higher.

—

Plan available online

>> The 2045 Oahu Regional Transportation Plan and Overall Work Program can be viewed at the agency’s website, oahumpo.org.

>> Comments can be sent via email to OahuMPO@ OahuMPO.org or by regular mail to: 707 Richards St., Suite 200, Honolulu, HI 96813.