Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Hub, spoke concept
for bus routes cheered

By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

Expand and reorganize bus routes to add what in railroad parlance would be spurs, or spokes, to growing Leeward communities. Send passengers to central locations, or hubs, to connect with other routes.

What do you have? You have hubs and spokes -- a concept that won almost universal praise last week at a public hearing in Kapolei.

For example, the hub for Kapolei would be on Kamokila Boulevard near the Consolidated theater complex.

Other new spoke routes would provide better bus service to and from Waipahu, Waikele, Ewa Beach, Makaha, Nanakuli and Waianae.

The hub-and-spoke concept is designed to improve bus-system efficiency and better serve people in growing communities.

Some new routes go into effect in August. After about a year, the city will review these new routes and consider further modifications if necessary.

Mary Bergmann, a board member of the Makakilo Hale I homeowners association, called the new route concept an "ingenious design."

The only suggested change came from Albert Fukushima, Pearl City Neighborhood Board chairman. He asked that a proposed Pearl City stop be moved one block farther east, toward Honolulu, from Waimano Home Road and Kamehameha Highway to Puu Momi Street and Kamehameha Highway.

This would better serve Pacific Palisades residents, he said. His board approved of everything else in the plan, Fukushima said.

C.C. Curry, representing herself, voiced "extreme gratitude" for the plan, especially for a proposed route to West Loch Village to be used by disabled and elderly residents living in low-cost city housing there.

The hub-and-spoke bus-route structure would include service to and from Waipahu (Route 47), Ewa Mill (Route 48), Ewa Beach (Route 49), Kapolei/Makakilo/Village Park (Route 50), Makaha (Route 51) and the Nanakuli/Waianae shuttle (Route 75).

Basic existing peak-period express buses and limited stop routes would be retained with some changes to avoid duplication.

Ten community circulator buses -- with service every 30 or 60 minutes -- will be introduced to replace existing service that will be eliminated.

Circulators will then provide transportation to Waianae Valley Road, Lualualei Homestead Road, Nanakuli, Honokai Hale, Campbell Industrial Park, Makakilo/ Panana, Makakilo Heights, Ewa Beach, Ewa, Waipahu and Waikele.

Local routes will provide service every 30 minutes along Farrington Highway between Makaha through Kapolei to Pearlridge and every 60 minutes from Kapolei to Ewa Beach. A local route providing service every 15 minutes from Waipahu to downtown Honolulu and Waikiki will originate at either Village Park or Ewa Beach.