Travel restrictions on North Kona’s Palani Road will snarl traffic a couple of weeks longer than anticipated.
Travel restrictions on North Kona’s Palani Road will snarl traffic a couple of weeks longer than anticipated.
Despite the delay, the entire project, including the construction of 2.5 miles of the new Ane Keohokalole Highway, remains on schedule to be completed in May, or early June at the latest, Nan Inc. Project Manager Alex Leonard said Thursday.
Leonard’s schedule for the project’s completion jibes with statements he made in May 2011 that work would wrap up in the second quarter of 2012. However, when the project commenced in spring 2010 West Hawaii Today articles listed the project’s expected completion date as January 2012.
With the current holdup, motorists can expect the no-mauka-bound-travel setup on Palani Road through April 6, he said. The closure, which has been in effect since mid-January, had been scheduled to end today.
The reason behind the delay is simple: Nan Inc. crews realized they could utilize the mechanized slip-form concrete paving process for most of Palani Road rather than having to hand pour parts of it, Leonard said. Because the machine had to be returned to the mainland by the end of March, Nan said crews altered their work schedule to use it.
Now, crews have to form and pour Palani Road’s intersection with Kamakaeha Avenue before travel in both directions resumes on the mauka-makai road, he said, noting work was supposed to be done in February. Once poured, the road needs a week to harden before vehicles can use it.
With the closure, motorists cannot make a right or left turn from Queen Kaahumanu Highway to travel up Palani Road, according to the Hawaii County Department of Public Works. Motorists looking to head mauka on Palani Road must use Henry Street and there are also no left turns permitted from Henry Street onto Palani Road.
Post April 6 and through May, mauka and makai travel will be permitted on Palani Road, however, motorists should expect intermittent lane closures while Nan Inc. crews pave the road’s intersection with Henry Street, he said. During that time he expects there will be no access between Palani Road and Henry Street.
Ground was broken on the first phase of the federal stimulus funded $29.9 million Ane Keohokalole Highway project on March 30, 2010, and was originally planned as a mile and a half of highway from Palani Road to the West Hawaii Civic Center. In February, Nan Inc. was awarded a $3.24 million contract to complete an extra mile bringing the road from its terminus with Palani Road to Hina-Lani Street.
Leonard on Thursday said Nan Inc. crews had just finished paving the 2.5-mile highway and will wrap up work in May.
The $4 million in Palani Road improvements were added to the project in summer 2010 using leftover stimulus funding from the highway project. Hawaii County had been awarded $35 million for the project, but bids came in $5 million less.