KAILUA-KONA — Widening of Highway 19, Queen Kaahumanu Highway, is likely to take a year longer than initially expected.
The reason behind the delay is unclear. The Department of Transportation has provided no details beyond the revised timeline and the fact that there were “some impacts to archaeological sites,” when asked several times by West Hawaii Today reporters over the course of approximately one month.
The project, in its second phase, will widen the highway from a two-lane highway to a four-lane highway from Kealakehe Parkway to Keahole Airport Road. The effort will also install new traffic signals and lighting, landscaping improvements and the relocation of utilities.
Meanwhile, the state is also working with the County of Hawaii to build new water mains and facilities to accommodate future expansion of the sewer system.
The stalled project follows the first phase of the project, which widened the highway from Henry Street to Kealakehe Parkway. That project finished in 2007.
Work on phase 2 broke ground in September 2015. At that time, the Department of Transportation provided an estimated completion date of September 2017 and an estimated construction cost of $90 million.
Now, that deadline has been pushed back to November 2018, extending the project by 14 months.
Tim Sakahara, the Department of Transportation’s public information officer, said at the beginning of this month that the department is “looking at ways to expedite that completion.”
He added that the agency is “assessing the impacts” to unspecified archaeological sites, but couldn’t provide any further details.
On Friday, he said he couldn’t provide details before reviewing the information with department leadership, who was off-island.
Contractor Goodfellow Bros. Inc. deferred comments about the project to the Department of Transportation.
In March, a slowdown was attributed to a delay in the state signing off on a redesign of the roadway’s southern portion.
The design had to be changed to avoid historical sites at Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, which required changes in the median and a retaining wall, according to previous West Hawaii Today reports.
But at the end of the month, a post at www.BuildQueenK.com, a Goodfellow Bros. website that tracks progress on the project, said the problems “have been resolved (and) ordering of materials and construction can continue.”
The post went on to state that the contractor and state were working to make up for the lost time and said, “the planned September 2017 completion date is not expected to be compromised.”
On Oct. 6, a project update posted to BuildQueenK said work was continuing near the Kealakehe Intersection.
Crews, the update said, were installing gravity sewer and reclaimed water lines and the sewer force main installation had begun.
Street light installation, meanwhile, was expected to begin between the National Park and Kealakehe intersection while street lights were going up near the Keahole intersection.
As of Saturday afternoon, that update was the most recent one posted to the website.