Assessment finds little traffic — or ferry service

Supplement anticipates a finding of no significant from operations

RYBy HAR EAGAR, Staff WriterBy HARRY EAGAR
KAHULUI — A supplemental draft environmental assessment dealing specifically with vehicle traffic generated at Kahului Harbor is open for comment through March 24.

The state Harbors Division is working on a Kahului Harbor 2030 Master Plan, but last year 2nd Circuit Judge Joel August allowed the 2025 finding of no significant impact to be reopened for the limited purpose of assessing traffic impacts from the Hawaii Superferry.

The supplement anticipates a finding of no significant impact from ferry operations.

Using the old environmental impact statement, the state had contended that no special mitigation measures were necessary to accommodate the ferry traffic and other displacements of traffic caused by the extensive reconfiguration of the harbor’s shoreside operations.

That was challenged by the Kahului Harbor Coalition and the Maui Tomorrow Foundation. August initially turned aside that protest.

However, when the state subsequently announced it was entering negotiations to purchase the Old Kahului Store and other real estate from A&B Properties, resulting in shoreside reconfigurations, August held that that changed the original assessment.

The state said the acquisition was to provide new space for Young Brothers operations, not the Superferry that was displacing Young Brothers on part of Pier 2.

August said that changed matters, inasmuch as it affected traffic patterns on Kaahumanu Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare for one of the island’s busiest urban areas. He imposed temporary mitigation measures and reopened the environmental assessment for the limited purpose of reassessing traffic connected with ferry operations.

Surveys were taken on four days in January when the ferry was operating. However, because of its other troubles, the ferry produced far less traffic on any of those days than even the moderate totals that were used to calculate levels of service at nearby intersections in the original finding of no significant impact.

The ferry is in drydock and so no real-world test of traffic from the Superferry has been possible.

The supplemental environmental assessment, prepared by Belt Collins Hawaii Ltd., reports that the highest observed traffic load due to the ferry during the January surveys was 135 vehicles on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. That was barely more than Hawaii Superferry’s old projections of an average of 110 vehicles and less than the old projected weekly peak day total of 153.

The Alakai has a capacity of 282 compact cars or a smaller number of a mixed load of larger cars and trucks.

But on the three ordinary days surveyed, the loads were only 59 to 80 vehicles. These were split about 60-to-40 between those leaving Maui for Oahu and those coming into Maui.

Officers were on hand to help smooth the traffic, and the observers found that both intersections (Kaahumanu-Puunene Avenue and Kaahumanu-Wharf Street) “operated freely without congestion.”

On the Monday holiday, the report found congestion on Kaahumanu Avenue between 11 a.m. and noon but attributed that to local traffic, as all the ferry traffic had cleared by then.

The January study by Fehr & Peers/Kaku Associates was not used to recalculate the levels of service anticipated in the original environmental study.

The supplement says the January counts “offer some context regarding (Hawaii Superferry’s) relative contribution to traffic in the harbor vicinity.”

Copies of the supplement are available for inspection at the Kahului and Wailuku public libraries and the Maui Community College library.

Written comments should be submitted by March 24 to the accepting agency, the Department of Transportation, 869 Punchbowl St., Honolulu 96813, with a copy also to the consultant, Belt Collins Hawaii, 2153 N. King St., Suite 200, Honolulu 96819.



• Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com.