County Engineer Donald Fujimoto announced that the demolition and replacement of a one-lane bridge over a stream along ‘Olohena Road in Wailua Homesteads begins today, Monday, June 27, and the work is expected to take approximately four to five months
County Engineer Donald Fujimoto announced that the demolition and replacement of a one-lane bridge over a stream along ‘Olohena Road in Wailua Homesteads begins today, Monday, June 27, and the work is expected to take approximately four to five months to complete.
A portion of ‘Olohena Road, between the intersections of Hauiki Road and Ka‘apuni Road, including the bridge, will be closed to vehicular traffic at 6 a.m. today, and will remain closed until the bridge work is completed, he said.
Motorists will need to seek alternate routes to get to their destinations while the ‘Olohena Road bridge project is being worked on, Fujimoto noted.
For more information, please call Willy Ortal, project engineer, with the county Department of Public Works, at 241-6614.
Several Wailua Homesteads residents, including Su Haynes, who lives on Waipouli Road, are very concerned about response times of emergency vehicles after the road is shut down for the bridge work.
“I hope they position a pumper truck and an ambulance and police” vehicles above ‘Olohena Road where the road will be closed, “because there have been lots of (emergency) calls” lately, Haynes said.
According to a Kaua‘i Fire Department spokesperson, there are no plans to position fire trucks above the area where the road will be closed, though firefighters in the Kapa‘a fire station have devised alternate routes of response to certain areas of Wailua Homesteads where they would normally have taken the portion of ‘Olohena Road that is closed effective this morning.
Earlier, American Medical Response leaders said they would position a fully-loaded ambulance mauka of the ‘Olohena Road bridge, and if emergency calls come in during the construction period, a crew would drive to the makai side of the closed bridge, walk over the stream on a footpath, and take the fully-loaded ambulance to the emergency scene.
Haynes and others are also “very disappointed that there are no signs or speed bumps” planned for Waipouli or Hauiki roads, where even before the road closing lots of night racing goes on on those narrow roads.
Haynes joked that she might take to spray-painting her own 15 mph signs, and that she may lay down some nail strips to slow down traffic through the residential area.
Other area residents, including Glenn Mickens, have criticized county officials for approving a $4-million bridge to replace the short bridge, saying something cheaper would last just as long and save tax-payers money.
Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste said the planned concrete bridge will last several years, and is a safer alternative than a steel bridge favored by some residents.
Baptiste also said earlier that roads that will see greater usage because of the closure of a portion of ‘Olohena Road would be improved by county crews before today’s closing.
Haynes, however, said some of the roads that beginning today will see much more traffic are one-lane roads that have deteriorated into less-than-one-lane streets. The promised repairs didn’t happen, she noted.
