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County seeks new transporation hub

QKC informs county it won’t renew Maui Bus transit hub: Lease expires in 2020; mayor seeks funding of new hub at Legislature

A Maui Bus makes its way toward the Queen Ka‘ahumanu Center transit hub in Kahului in 2015. The center has notified Maui County that its lease for a bus stop at the center will expire in January 2020. The county has identified a half-acre site for a new transit center near the intersection of Vevau and School streets in Kahului. On Friday, Mayor Alan Arakawa asked state lawmakers for $2.5 million in capital improvement funding for the project. -- The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Maui County is seeking $2.5 million from the Legislature to build a half-acre transit hub on state property near the Kahului Public Library and the intersection of Vevau and School streets.

Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa requested the project funding Friday at the state Capitol during a counties informational briefing before the House Finance and Senate Ways and Means committees.

On Oct. 5, the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center informed Maui County that it would not renew a lease for the current Maui Bus system’s transit hub on the Wailuku side of the shopping center’s property, the mayor told lawmakers. The lease expires Jan. 31, 2020.

The “Maui public transportation system is essential for both residents and visitors,” Arakawa said. “The system operates from 5:30 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week and logs over 2.1 million boardings annually.”

The mayor told lawmakers that the county has found “an ideal new location that is near the existing hub, adjacent to 165 senior housing units and a mixed-use project that includes low-income rentals and is in close proximity to shops, restaurants and medical facilities.”

The county will fund the planning and design phase, Arakawa said.

County Department of Transportation Director Don Medeiros said his department will ask for $650,000 for planning and design of the transit hub from the Maui County Council. He called the new project “urgent” and added that with the lease ending in a little more than two years there’s a “short timeline.”

Shopping center management informed the county verbally a couple of years ago about ending the bus transit center at Queen Ka’ahumanu Center, but there was no firm deadline until the notice came in October, Medeiros said.

“Queen Ka’ahumanu (management) has been just great,” he said. “They’ve been a super-duper partner.”

The hub has been at the center from July 1, 2005, and since then the public bus system has grown. There’s been “tons of people” drawn to the center bus stop, he said.

When asked why the shopping center would discontinue the transit hub when it brings people to the area, Medeiros referred questions to Queen Ka’ahumanu Center management.

Center Marketing Director Toni Rojas said the shopping center wasn’t built with the infrastructure to handle the growing number of bus riders using the island’s transportation system.

“However, we have worked diligently and successfully with the County of Maui to ensure that our community needs are met,” she said. “We feel it is in the best interest of the public transportation users and the County of Maui to create a dedicated, central transit hub to accommodate the continued increased demand of this service.”

Rojas said center management understands it takes time to develop a new transit hub and wanted to provide ample notification of the lease expiration in January 2020.

“We will, of course, continue our strong working partnership to ensure a seamless transition,” she said.

The closing window of time for the Queen Ka’ahumanu Center transit hub spurred a search for other locations, Medeiros said.

“There ain’t a heck of a lot in Kahului that would be close enough,” he said, stressing that, ideally, the new hub would be near the existing one to minimize disruptions to current bus routes.

“It’s a hub-and-spoke system,” he said. “If you move the hub too far, there’s a negative impact in some places.”

The county Transportation Department looked at moving to property on the Kamehameha Avenue side of the Kahului Shopping Center, but landowner Alexander & Baldwin was continuing planning for property uses in the area, he said.

Another site was the empty lot on Puunene Avenue, across from McDonald’s and behind the Salvation Army facility, he said. But that site was determined to be too far from the current hub, and there were considerations about other plans for the property.

Then, last year, there was an initiative from the state Legislature for state and county officials to explore the feasibility of using an underutilized, 5.6-acre state parcel on Kaahumanu Avenue, across from the Maui Beach Hotel, Medeiros said. From there, a plan developed for a mixed-use rental housing project that would include offices for the state Department of Accounting and General Services and the Maui Community School for Adults.

Department of Housing and Human Concerns Director Carol Reimann said it’s too early to say how many units would be in what she called a workforce rental housing project, but it would likely have two or more stories. The county is in the process of planning the project with the Hawaii Housing Finance & Development Corp., she said.

The county is seeking a half-acre of that property, near the intersection of School and Vevau streets, for the bus facility, Medeiros said. “We don’t need a whole lot of land to do this,” he said.

When asked what the transit hub would look like, he said it would be like driving to a service station but with a long rectangular roof providing shade for bus riders who’d also have seating and restroom facilities, he said. In front, there would be enough space for buses “two deep and three long” to stop and pick up passengers.

He added that there would be a “minimal” amount of parking, but exact details were not available because planning was ongoing.

Aside from the state’s plans for low-income rental housing, Catholic Charities Housing Development Corp. is planning its 164-unit, Kahului Lani affordable housing project nearby on 3.8 acres on South Kane Street, on the site of the former go-kart racing track.

Medeiros said the county would seek a license to lease the state property for the transit hub.

When asked about likely criticism that the hub site would become a magnet for homeless people, he said there are “critics everywhere . . . but, in the meantime, what do I do?”

The Transportation Department already has started studying how the new location would affect bus routes, Medeiros said.

The impact would be the greatest on the Lahaina Islander and Wailuku bus routes, he said, because the new site would be “further for them.”

“Now we’re going through two more traffic lights to get there,” he said.

There likely will be adjustments in bus schedules to give drivers on the affected routes more time to go to and from the new hub, he said.

“We’re trying to be as proactive as we can,” he said.

In other requests to state lawmakers, Mayor Arakawa asked for $5 million for the second phase of an 800-acre expansion of the Kula Ag Park, and he sought support for keeping affordable units at the Front Street Apartments in Lahaina.

West and South Maui Sen. Roz Baker and West Maui Rep. Angus McKelvey have said they’re working with the HHFDC to help residents stay in apartments that are at risk because of a 2012 Internal Revenue Service rule that allows the owners to convert the complex’s 142 units to market-priced rentals.

* Brian Perry can be reached at bperry@mauinews.com.

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