2010-07-08 THNMP - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

SUMADA: Sumada. WOODWARD: Sumada. Okay, if youÓll give us your name and address; and then you may begin, sir. SUMADA: My name is Jiro Sumada. IÓm the Deputy Director for th Transportation, Highways Division. Address is 86, 869 Punchbowl Street in Honolulu. IÓm here today to provide testimony in favor of the time extension for this development. I also have staff with me here too in case there are questions that come up; and IÓll probably ask our Highways Administrator to come up for those questions. Again, the Department supports the time extension request. We also ask the Planning Commission to include the requirement, additional requirement, for the developer to construct a right-in and right-out. Before I address the issue of concurrency, what IÓd like to do is just to provide the Commission some history. The traffic conditions surrounding the development for our State Highways -- namely the Malama Market intersection as immonly referred to, but we classify it as Old Government Road intersection with Highway 130 -- in addition to that intersection, and the County intersection roadways in this devel problems existing right now. Before Mr. Ogasawara initiated his development, they have traffic problems. We know about them. We have projects on the books that are geared at least for State Highways to try and mitigate those traffic concerns. When we were presented with this time extension request I received calls from members of the community, namely Joyce Folena and Greg, expressing their concern that once the Woodland Center opens the existing traffic problems will get worse. And I tend to agree with that, that the traffic concerns will increase. About a month ago, based on some of these phone calls, and it wasnÓt just from Joyce and Greg but from others in the community, we called a meeting. Knowing the timeline that we had for our projects on State Highw traffic concerns, we called a meeting and we met with the County Public Works Department. We brought together our traffic experts from State Highways, the State Highway Traffic Engineer, and also the County Public Works Traffic Engineer. We kind of all sat around in the Public Works Conference Room and we said when the Woodland Cente existing traffic problems are going to get worse. What are some solutions that we can come up with? Forget who owns the road, forget who has to fund the project, what are some solutions? And we came up with one. And that was the right-in/right-out that is going to be constructed by the developer. To provide a right-in/right-out at Kahakai intersection, create an intersection at Kahakai and 130; and I have a drawing thatÓs available for the Commissioners. Once I got agreement from both the County Traffic Engineer and the State Highway Traffic Engineer that the best solution, most immediate solution for this situation was the right-in and right-out at Kahakai, then the issue came up of whoÓs going to do it. Now if, because itÓs a pre- existing condition, the traffic problems in this general area, we recognized that any improvement on the State Highway should be initiated by us. And like I said, we do have projects on the books that deal with traffic concerns in the area. Those projects at this particular time didnÓt address connecting Kahakai to 130. Okay? But when we met with the State and County Traffic 12 EXHIBIT A