Permit allows for parking, road to Kahului Airport

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WAILUKU - The Maui Planning Commission approved a special management area permit this week for the state to nearly double the amount of parking at Kahului Airport.

The permit also allows the state Department of Transportation to begin work on the airport end of a $72 million access road.

Under plans discussed during the commission meeting Tuesday, the airport parking lot will expand toward Puunene. Now, the parking lot has approximately 2,000 stalls: 1,200 for airport customers and 800 for employees, said planning consultant Mike Munekiyo. The expansion project will add 1,930 stalls.

The department's Airports Division also will begin the airport end of the access road, bringing it within a short distance of the planned road's intersection with Hana Highway.

The Airports Division work is estimated to cost $60 million, Munekiyo said.

The department's Highways Division will pick up the airport access road from where it was left by the Airports Division and take it across Hana Highway to a new connection with Puunene Avenue and Kuihelani Highway, Munekiyo told planning commissioners.

The plan for rerouting traffic at the intersection calls for abandoning the pavement of Dairy Road from its traffic light at Maui Harley-Davidson almost to Puunene Avenue. Dairy Road, which is expected to become less heavily used, will bend into the road that now feeds traffic into Wal-Mart and Home Depot and intersect with the new access road.

With the new road, motorists will drive directly from Kuihelani to the airport without traveling on Dairy Road. Plans call for the access road to cross Hana Highway at grade level, requiring a stoplight.

Munekiyo said the state plans to do the airport parking lot expansion first, beginning as early as this year. The access road portions would be started in 2011 and completed in 2012, under the current plan.