Laniakea parking might reopen this week, officials say

The parking area across the highway from the North Shore’s popular “Turtle Beach” might finally reopen following work scheduled for today through Friday.

“We are working with the Hawai‘i Department of Transportation this week on modifications to improve the traffic pattern along Laniakea,” Nathan Serota, spokesperson for the city Department of Parks and Recreation, said in an email Tuesday.

“We know this issue is important to the community and intend to reopen the mauka side of the highway for public usage once these modifications are completed,” he added.

The public parking area had been closed since a mudslide during heavy rain in December, said Pupukea resident Sanford Lung.

He said in an email that on Friday, with North Shore surf of 4 to 6 feet, he was driving east along Kamehameha Highway and cars were parked on the mauka side of roadway from Aloun Farms on the Haleiwa side past Chun’s Reef toward Waimea.

At Laniakea, an area heavily promoted by social media and notorious for traffic congestion due to turtle- and surf-watchers darting haphazardly across the highway, pedestrians waited for a break in traffic, Lung said.

Others, walking on the mauka shoulder, “were constrained by parked cars (raising) the possibility of a crush between an inattentive driver and a pedestrian in a narrowed passage,” he added.

The Save Laniakea Coalition brought a lawsuit in state court in 2014 seeking public parking and safer beach access at Laniakea after barriers were installed in 2013 by the state, preventing parking in the area mauka of the highway. The court issued a temporary injunction in the plaintiffs’ favor, and in 2015 DOT removed the barriers but installed “no parking” signs.

The signs were removed in November, and the parking area was officially opened after the addition of separate one-way entry and exit driveways, and barriers and crosswalks designed to shepherd pedestrians under an interim agreement overseen by 1st Circuit Judge Jeffrey Crabtree.

After the parking area opened, Crabtree ordered that adjustments be made following complaints about the placement of the crosswalks, lack of openings in the barriers to directly access the crosswalks, and community concerns about the spacing of the parking area’s entrance and exit.

“It is my understanding that the state Department of Transportation will be moving and repainting the Waimea-end crosswalk more toward Waimea when they relocate the barriers and move the exit opening in that direction as well,” said Bill Saunders, attorney for the Save Laniakea Coalition.

DOT spokesperson Shelly Kunishige confirmed Tuesday that barrier and barrel relocation were scheduled for today “at the direction of the city, which owns the mauka property.”

But roadwork such as repainting crosswalks seemed unlikely, she added, as “the department road closure list shows nothing for Lani­akea.”

Saunders said he had urged the city to complete repairing the surface of the parking area before it reopens.

“Fill material has been placed in one of the low- lying areas, approximately 15 feet wide by 75 feet long, with a mix of mostly dirt and small gravel,” he said.

“However, there are other low spots which were apparently quite muddy but which have not had any fill deposited,” Saunders added, “so it is still a bog waiting to happen” with the next big rain.

In December, Saunders said, a dangerous situation developed near the exit “because cars couldn’t get traction in the mud to get onto the highway,” but “little to nothing has been done” to fill in that area.

As of Tuesday neither the city nor the DOT would say whether the surface of the parking area would be worked on this week.