2010-06-04 T-MALOOF - Laserfiche WebLink

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The other issue is traffic. And thereÓs no doubt that Highway 130 is a traffic issue, and particularly at peak times of the day. But it was created over a 50-year process; and solving that problem is going to take a great amount of time. Two points, the neighborhood center concept is actually part of the solution, not part of the problem. ItÓs intended to be a way to keep traffic generating, and self-generating within the Puna area, rather than coming and going from it. All, to my view, all of the neighborhood centers and small commercial centers that are identified in the Puna CDP are served by intersections on Highway 130 that are currently at the F level of service at peak morning and afternoon, all of them, including the KeaÒau Transfer Station which is a, you know, a growing kind of public community green business thatÓs right at that intersection. So using the Level F issue, and IÓm not trying to discount that or the traffic accidents that are involved in that process but to saying that that is your reason for not allowing these things to happen is taking one of the solutions out of play, and that is the growth and expansion of these small commercial nodes providing services. So if you want to wait for traffic to be solved before those kinds of centers exists or allowed to grow and provide services, weÓre going to wait a long time behind the wide load, that is DOT, that it takes to make them move those things along. The second point is that Highway 130 improvements are real active conversations today. We asked this Commission for sixty days additional time. We were originally scheduled sixty days ago. And what we wanted to do was to get as good and current a look at the on-going work that the Department of Transportation has done along Highway 130. Just a week or so ago they did submit their draft Environmental Assessment for the entire corridor. So thatÓs 120 megabytes of report. ItÓs a lot to dig into. After I finished reading it, there was a cartoon in the Tribune Herald on Sunday about a guy with a blindfold on and a dart standing in front of a wheel that was, you know, four-lane, three-lane, two-lane options for the Puna and they were kind of throwing darts at it. And itÓs kind of like what I felt after I read it. It defines a lot of potential solutions, but actually what happens will depend on availability of funds, on what the next, you know, kind of, a whole series of issues. But what we do know is that the final Environmental Assessment has been completed for the first step of the improvements, maybe the first major step of improvements on Highway 130 in, I guess since the Phoa Bypass Road, no, the KeaÒau Bypass Road. And that is the shoulder widening and the light at Shower. Our understanding is, from conversations with the project managers at DOT, is that they will put the, theyÓre doing the last bit of a plan prep, theyÓll go out to bid in October. They expect 15 to 18 months of construction period of time, and would expect that the highway improvements, the widening of that shoulder and putting a light at the Pohaku and Shower intersection, would be completed by about the middle of 2012. What we see, what we think that will do is platoon traffic down the entire corridor. It isnÓt going to solve all of these issues. Nothing will solve all of these issues, but it will begin to do that. And from BrooksÓs perspective, heÓs more than willing to wait until that light gets turned on to take occupancy in this building. ThatÓs not something that heÓs saying, you know, heÓs going to run out and do this and not care about the traffic. If thatÓs an issue, if this issue wants to be addressed, it is being addressed in its first step; and heÓs willing to set that line apart. So thatÓs an important issue. And I think with that I just kind of let it, let you folks throw questions at us. I do appreciate TakaÓs concern about this GP/CDP issue, it is going to be an issue in the 13 EXHIBIT A