Queen Kaahumanu Highway Update,HELCO Completes Work on Kealaka’a,Possible HEI/HT Merger ?

I had the opportunity to drive on the new Queen Kaahumanu Highway mauka northbound lanes today. It has turned out really nice.But I figure we are in for a rough ride until this project is completed in December.The traffic changes done on the southbound lanes to allow the construction work to proceed appears to be causing traffic gridlock. I e-mailed Brennon Morioka about this issue. He said traffic adjustments are being made to help alleviate this problem.

But in my opinion this issue pales in comparison to the Palani Road/Queen Kaahumanu Highway intersection reconstruction. The best case scenario is to do this construction work at night. But apparently Hawaiian Dredging needs a noise abatement permit to do any construction work in the evening. According to Brennon Morioka, that is a 9-12 month process to obtain that permit. He was unsure if Hawaiian Dredging had obtained this permit. So he was going to be inquiring about the latter.

I personally have a bad feeling that the armchair engineers will be coming out of the woodwork again if the intersection construction causes too much traffic disruptions.

I observed that HELCO completed the utility pole re-alignment on Kealaka’a Street today. Hopefully this will allow Jas Glover to recommence construction on the Palani Road/Kealaka’a Street intersection re-alignment.

Ian Lind did an interesting blog posting on a possible HEI-Hawaiian Telcom merger. I personally believe that there will be a cold day in hell before this materializes.There is simply too many regulatory hurdles that could ostensibly block this paring.