All projects have good and bad impacts affecting differently people, activities and localities. A taxpayer-funded project should detail the distributional aspect of these impacts, to craft a fully community supported project because it is properly explored in its alternatives and mitigation measures.
The bike and pedestrian bridge proposed at the Ala Wai Canal, University Avenue and Kalaimoku Street location is problematic because the City and County of Honolulu’s draft environmental assessment (DEA) released in March 2021 has an “Anticipated Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) without adequately describing many potential adverse impacts that significantly affect people at the Moiliili area.
The city’s DEA and its alternative analysis documents are defective procedurally and substantially for not fully accounting the reasons outlined below — which are in addition to those about bridge size, scenic, historic, cultural, preservation and environmental concerns already stated by residents in their testimonies.
City planners should assess the area’s neighborhood boards’ resolutions and opposition to the Ala Wai Bridge Project of the past four decades — identifying concerns for traffic congestion, insufficient parking, public safety, antisocial behavior and crime — and their proposed alternative to improve McCully Bridge for pedestrian and bicycles.
Public safety for school children and park users is a concern. Ala Wai Elementary School staff and parents reported loitering of homeless at the school fence. Homeless may seek shelter under the bridge, as they do elsewhere. Loitering and theft in the gardens and overnight staying are occurring. Traffic on the bridge, rather than deterring crime, may very well be a novel crime scene, given higher rates of crime coming over from Waikiki compared to Moiliili. Currently, city ordinance closes the Ala Wai Park from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., and it is very effective in keeping crime much lower than before it was enacted.
This convivial park is fully used. The Ala Wai bridge would disrupt its functionality by decreasing the number of car stalls and impeding access to park activities for children, youth, kupuna, parents, families, paddlers, soccer, baseball and basketball players, gardeners and dog owners. The park’s many activities require all existing car stalls. This park is also enjoyed by Micronesian extended families with their cultural gatherings, and they should be allowed to continue.
The bridge would increase traffic congestion. Congestion already occurs now during school times on all the nearby streets, requiring up to three police officers to direct traffic, while condo residents have difficulty exiting or entering their garages. The bridge also would exacerbate parking competition because mauka residents would drive and park their cars to walk or bike to Waikiki, conflicting with legitimate park users.
Importantly, Waikiki tsunami evacuation should be “vertical evacuation” in the upper floors of buildings. The DEA should not encourage people to run on foot in the mauka direction because Moiliili is two feet lower than Waikiki and the most dangerous tsunami wave would travel up the Ala Wai Canal and its tributary channels, as the Waikiki evacuation map clearly depicts.
Finally, a publicly-funded project requires a full environmental impact statement involving the affected residents early in its “scoping phase,” to determine what investigation, mitigation and alternative will lead to a successful project lasting generations, one that is community supported.
Luciano Minerbi is a professor emeritus of urban and regional planning at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
