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Aiea residents
fear traffic jams if
drive-in becomes
transit center

A city plan would place the
facility, with 500 parking stalls,
on the 14-acre property

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By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

Jane Sugimura says the intersection of Moanalua Road and Kaonohi Street already has the worst traffic backup in Aiea.

Now, a city plan calls for a major transit center complete with 500 parking stalls at the 14-acre Kam Drive In site on one of its corners.

"If they make it a transit center, that's going to really make it bad," said Sugimura, a member of the Aiea Neighborhood Board who lives in a condominium about a block away from the intersection.

The proposed Aiea-Pearl City transit center -- and possible alternatives -- will be the topic of a community meeting to be led by area City Councilman Gary Okino at 6:30 p.m. next Wednesday at Waimalu Elementary School's cafeteria.

Both Cheryl Soon, director of the Department of Transportation Services, and Council Transportation Chairman Duke Bainum stress that they are open to all options and that no decision on where to locate a facility will be made for a while.

Kam Drive In is listed as the preferred site for the Aiea-Pearl City hub in the environmental impact study done for the $1 billion-plus "Bus Rapid Transit" plan now being studied by the Council.

Soon said the Kam Drive In's proximity to Pearlridge Center and several condominiums, as well as its closeness to H-1 freeway, made it an obvious choice.

The city also likes the site because of its large size, which would allow not only for a park-and-ride but "many other viable community uses" such as a park.

However, John Ciesla, association president for the 300-unit Lele Pono tower condominium across the street from Kam Drive In, listed noise, fumes and traffic congestion among the problems with putting a transit center there.

Ciesla estimated as many as 1,800 residents live in the cluster of condominiums and townhouses around Pearlridge.

"We would be constantly having buses in and out of there," said Marion Kendrick, acting association president for the Harbor Pointe townhouses on the Ewa side of Kam Drive In.

Kendrick noted that newer buses have the technology to hold traffic lights in their favor. "That would create more havoc," he said. He also had concerns about security.

The Aiea Neighborhood Board opposed the site in a vote last month. Board Chairman Bill Clark, who lives along the upper portion of Kaonohi Street, pointed out that plans call for new H-1 off-ramps to be constructed that would work in conjunction with an Aiea-Pearlridge transit center.

"That would cause us a little bit of grief," Clark said. "I don't know how they are going to construct the on- and off-ramps."

Okino said he also has not been persuaded the center should be at Kam Drive In. "I think it's the wrong place to have a transit center," he said. "It might be a place where a lot of people go, but I think there are other ways to serve those people."

Several alternate sites have already been suggested and are under study by Soon's department. Among them are the old Timber Town site on Kaahumanu Street and two former car lots along Kamehameha Highway near Pearlridge.

Okino said Aloha Stadium, where a park-and-ride facility is already planned, could also be expanded to fit the definition of a regional transit center.

Soon acknowledged that traffic is an issue for the site, but said she believes the large area at the drive-in may lend itself to actually improving the traffic at the intersection.

"We feel some of the things can be addressed."