Hamakua Drive and Aoloa Street Completion Project
Hamakua Drive enters Kailua Town as it crosses the Kawainui Stream Bridge. Its intersection with Aoloa Street has become over time the main entrance to the Kailua Gardens condominiums. Those condominiums and the Windward Town & Country Plaza shopping center occupy the two makai corners at Hamakua and Aoloa. Bordering Hamakua Marsh a group of Kailua merchants operate along Hamakua Drive from Aoloa to Hahani Street and beyond.
The featureless outdated character of this section of Hamakua Drive does little to promote the patronage of adjacent merchants, nor more generally the relaxed social character of Kailua. Attractive effective improvements have not been made during the past fifteen years, and a disturbing concern of local residents is pedestrian safety.
Even so, there are modern, even elegant, solutions which are winning popular support across our country. The roundabouts and associated proposals illustrated in this HEAG brochure have in these other locations lead to increased vehicle and pedestrian safety. Their more welcoming streetscapes and their practicality of greater safety have been shown to be consistent with increased retail activity in the area surrounding the traffic and landscaping improvements. Today when interest rates are low, one mainland community is continuing to build roundabouts literally by the dozen.
TURNING POINT – Alexander & Baldwin, the owner of much of the property in this section of Kailua, is in its deliberative phase of planning Kailua changes. A&B has acted to solicit public and specifically it’s tenants’ input regarding the character and extent of these changes.
Also, the City & County’s laudable Complete Streets initiative is planning changes to some Kailua streets. The plans in this brochure have been designed to completely meld with the Complete Streets’s promotion of increased pedestrian and bicyclist usage, safety and from a public health perspective physical fitness.
Roundabouts’ reduction in noise and air pollution and especially fuel consumption combine with the other proposals illustrated here to form a policy of Comprehensive Accountability. This is central to HEAG’s design scheme, and in preparation for our future. After environmentalist Paul Hawken, “We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. … Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.” Many of the benefits of these strategies are displayed across the top of the “Project Scope” table. Not the least of which is support of local retail and residential property values. The table shows a range of positive outcomes, personal and communal. Many are longer-term, the sort of solutions Kailua’s informed leadership has supported in the past.
This section of Kailua would seem to be at an inflection point of public/private infrastructure management. How proactive these plans will be and how boardly the improvements will be spread across all Kailua residents and merchants will be decided in the coming months.
TRAFFIC-CALMING, SHARING – If government dollars are to be spent it’s reasonable for all local taxpayers to expect to feel welcome and safe in using the resultant common facilities. This is reminiscent of the “Public Realm” concept which promotes sharing of the community’s entire physical structure between all users. More so than we currently do. The roundabout is an example of this less rigid imposition of restrictions and borders (e.g. traffic signage), yet with the more effective traffic-calming infrastructure (e.g. landscaping) to provide safer streets.
The proposed beautification at Aoloa Street serves this same practical traffic-calming goal with its impressive advantage of adding visual character and maturity to this entrance to Kailua Town. The mass and validity of this rock wall landscaping and the method of building up to the right of way each announce to approaching motorists an increase in caution is required. But even a heedless driver simply cannot physically navigate a roundabout at dangerous speeds. These lava rock structures and their near proximity to the street are both recognized as appropriate visible measures of safely slowing intersection traffic. The HEAG website provides a wealth of material on traffic background and roundabouts, see last page.
100% RENEWABLE ENERGY – Last year the State of Hawaii charted an exciting course to 100% renewable sourced energy by 2045. The HEAG Project enthusiastically supports that goal from the conservation side of the equation. All Project street lighting and lighting for name identification is LED generated using “warm” natural wavelengths. More convincingly, these LEDs coupled with the Project’s solar/battery power generation allows the option to operate as a stand alone power source independent of the electric utility.
As public and government vehicular fleets migrate from limited sourced gasoline vehicles to those powered by renewable electricity more conveniently located charging stations will be required. The Project recommends two electric vehicle charging stations as illustrated.
Roundabouts were mentioned in regard to their safety, i.e., slowing vehicular traffic to speeds far less likely to injure. In addition, due to their traffic flow logic and pattern they allow vehicles to spend less time decelerating, idling and accelerating. This fuel efficiency, coupled with the avoidance of expensive future traffic signal installation costs and maintenance, will play a proactive role in our State’s energy conservation goal. Energy is saved and drivers are kept on their way.
See “moving the ball forward >>” on the HEAG website for a summary of the effective leadership Kailua governmental representatives have played in advancing the State’s 100% goal. (www.kailuaheagroup.com/?page_id=21)
CONCLUSION – As windward populations grow traffic increases along Hamakua Drive will lead to more intense interaction between pedestrians and vehicles. There have been serious injuries, but so far no fatalities. Speeding is a root cause of such accidents. If we continue to wait to curtail this speeding an all too common scenario could well occur. A devastating accident leads the public to demand an immediate (though ill-considered) solution. The City & County is forced to comply and installs an off-the-shelf outdated solution such as a four-way stop or even a costly traffic signal. Spending dollars on such inefficient solutions would be in opposition to our State’s declared goals of energy efficiency and safer Complete Streets.
Let’s instead claim this section of Hamakua Drive as a second, shared, safe retail space like the delightfully wooded and well planned length of Kailua Road in the Town Center. Local civic and business planning schedules offer a current window of opportunity for adoption of these proposals. Automobiles, of course; bicycles, sure; but everyone else as well.
This is your personal invitation to become a supporter for free on the HEAG website. Help inspire further use of these energy accountable designs and construction principles. Make this transformative completion of the Hamakua Entrance to Kailua Town a reality.
Courage,
“The Hamakua Group”
