Members of the Laniakea Task Force are urging the state to prioritize adjustments to Kamehameha Highway to help avoid future accidents like the one involving a 10-year-old boy just days ago.

Eight members of the task force, which was formed in 2011 by the state Department of Transportation, held a news conference Sunday morning at Laniakea Beach to say they are eager to start addressing the safety issues of frequent jaywalking at that section of the highway in front of Laniakea Beach.

A car hit and seriously injured the boy crossing the highway Thursday afternoon; many people cross the highway to get to the popular North Shore beach known as Turtle Beach.

State Sen. Gil Riviere (D, Heeia-Laie-Waialua) said the state has not prioritized the area’s problems and that the task force has not met since April 2014.

“We’re here to advise and mediate and find a way forward, and DOT isn’t doing that because it’s not a priority for them, and we find that to be a problem,” he said. “Their job is to engineer various alternatives and then to bounce it off of us for input. … It 100% rests on DOT to pick something and move it forward.”

The DOT is considering two plans to realign the highway and move it inland to provide parking on its makai side. One plan will cost $6-8 million, and the other would cost $65 million and move the highway out of an inundation zone. The DOT said environmental clearances and funding are obstacles it faces for those projects.

In a statement it said a temporary and immediate fix would be to reinstall barriers that closed off the mauka side of the highway in 2013; the barriers were removed in an injunction that followed a 2015 lawsuit filed by the Save Laniakea Coalition, which was supported by the Surfrider Foundation.

“Our hope is that the plaintiffs in the 2015 case are willing to drop the injunction and allow us to provide the safety improvement that worked — the placement of the barriers that do not allow cars to park on the mauka side of the highway,” the statement said.

The Save Laniakea Coalition opposed the barriers because they cut off access to the beach.

Bill Saunders, attorney for the Save Laniakea Coalition during the 2015 lawsuit, suggested a compromise years ago. Most of the barriers would be kept up, but a nearby fence would be pushed back for more parking space, under the compromise.

There would also be a vehicle entrance and exit at the ends of the barriers as well as a waiting lane for vehicles and a marked crosswalk for pedestrians.

Saunders said the DOT was going to come up with a new plan to install the agreed-upon barrier parking lot but never did.

“The fence and land isn’t ours to make into a parking lot,” said Shelly Kunishige, the DOT’s public information officer, via email. “What they are proposing would be considered construction and would require environmental clearances, land acquisition and regrading.”

Saunders said a full environmental review had already been conducted on that portion of land and that no major permitting would be necessary to move the fence.

Larry McElheny, who has lived on the North Shore for about 40 years, said many people in the community had opposed completely blocking off the parking area.

“In many people’s opinion, it created a much more dangerous situation because people still would park, but they would park more haphazardly on either end of the barriers,” McElheny said. “The barriers improved the traffic flow — I’d say, moderately, maybe — at the time, but there’s way more traffic now.”