Although its surface has dried after being flooded in December’s heavy rain, the public parking area on city land across Kamehameha Highway from Laniakea Beach on Oahu’s North Shore remains closed.

That’s frustrating for beachgoers in the winter big-wave and tourist season, but Mary Wood, president of the North Shore Chamber of Commerce in Haleiwa, said she hopes the lot will stay closed until other hazards have been corrected — and that it will be soon.

“By law they have to open that parking up,” Wood said, referencing a temporary injunction and settlement agreement in a 2014 lawsuit the Save Laniakea Coalition won against the city and state, which had banned parking due to traffic bottlenecks caused by haphazard pedestrian forays across the road.

“But they have to do it in a safe and effective way,” she said.

In a Nov. 18 letter to the state Department of Transportation, Wood relayed safety concerns she had received from the North Shore community about a barricade and crosswalks the agency added earlier that month pursuant to an interim agreement overseen by 1st Circuit Judge Jeffrey Crabtree.

She observed that the lack of openings in the barricade at the crosswalks encouraged jaywalking; the placement of the crosswalks forced people to walk along dangerous road shoulders; and the entrance and exit to the lot were too small, resulting in abrupt slow-downs and turns.

As of Friday, Wood had not received a reply from the DOT.

On Wednesday, Save Laniakea Coalition lawyer Bill Saunders wrote the court requesting a status conference “regarding the progress on our agreement to improve the Laniakea parking situation,” as, “given that the weather has greatly improved, we believe that shifting the Waimea exit and crosswalk and improvements to the parking surface need to be done quickly.”

Time was of the essence, Saunders said, with the approach of the holding period that starts Saturday for the Billabong Pipeline Pro, formerly the Pipe Masters, “and North Shore traffic is historically very high during the event.”

Wood agreed.

“December was a madhouse on the North Shore with the holidays and visitors — 10,000 people a day came through the North Shore,” she said.

“It’s calmed down a little bit right now with school starting up again,” Wood said, but she expects traffic congestion would pick up as usual with Pipeline-bound spectators when the surf contest gets underway.

Adding to traffic snarls, Saunders said in his letter to the court, “monopolization of the Pipeline surf break (by the contest) drives other surfers who normally ride there to other North Shore spots, including Laniakea, Himalaya’s and Hultin’s, all of which are served by the Laniakea parking lot.”

In addition to protecting public beach access and reducing traffic gridlock, the main concern is motorist and pedestrian safety, Saunders told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Friday.

He said all parties to the lawsuit had agreed on moving the crosswalk and reconfiguring the parking exit.

“The new configuration calls for some of the barriers and barrels to be located on the city Department of Parks and Recreation parcel to create a narrow, slanted channel toward Waimea so people are not tempted to turn left there.”

On Thursday, the parties had another status conference via Zoom and agreed to meet and confer at the site, possibly this week, “including the DOT staff who are going to move the barriers and barrels at that time,” Saunders said.

Wood said the Chamber of Commerce wanted the parking area to be graded and pitched mauka for drainage, and coated with a 6- to 8-inch-thick bed of crushed coral with geofabric beneath to secure it.

“The amount of mud that has been up there has been incredible,” she said, and if the parking area is reopened without resurfacing, “the next rainstorm is going to leave it in as bad or worse condition.”