About 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, Glenwood resident Suzanne McClure sat with a friend at the Alibi Tavern in Keaau.
While sipping down an ice-cold beverage, she took a break from talking story to look out the bar’s window.
“Look at it. It’s still going on,” she said, referring to the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Keaau-Pahoa Road.
“I’ve been here since 2004 and this is the worst it’s ever been,” she said, still muddled by the ongoing traffic. “If you’re even thinking about going to Pahoa, forget it.”
“I was supposed to get a dog today at the Humane Society, but I wasn’t going to sit in traffic for an hour.”
McClure is among the many Keaau, Pahoa and Mountain View residents stuck in bottleneck traffic each day since the overlapping of two state roadway projects started creating congestion near the Highway 130 and Highway 11 intersection in Keaau.
A shoulder-lane conversion project on Highway 130 started in August last year, while a pavement preventive maintenance project on Highway 11 started April 3, 2013.
The Highway 130 project spans from Keaau Bypass Road to Shower Drive, a total length of 2.31 miles at a cost of $15 million. Construction includes two 12-foot lanes and an 8-foot shoulder lane in the inbound direction and one 12-foot lane and a 10-foot shoulder lane in the outbound direction. It is expected to be finished May 6, 2015.
The Highway 11 project runs from Mountain View to Keaau in both directions between mileposts 8.6 and 13.4. Construction is expected to take place from 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., but Salvador C. Panem, district engineer at the Hawaii District State of Hawaii Department of Transportation Highways Division, said contractors Yamada and Sons have been working later some days, resulting in heavy traffic during commuting hours.
“They will be assessed and penalized for those hours,” he said.
Panem said he is empathetic to Big Island residents gridlocked each night.
“I feel for them getting stuck in traffic, they’re not use to being stuck in traffic. If they were on Honolulu they might be use to it,” he said.
Completion for the Highway 11 project was slated for April 3, but Panem said the project is two weeks behind schedule.
In the meantime, he’s encouraging irritated drivers to be patient.
“I apologize to the people. It will get better,” he said.
Until the projects are finished, traffic conditions are likely to continue to affect the area’s residents.
Hawaiian Acres resident Bob Passafiume, another bar patron Wednesday afternoon, offered one creative solution.
“I think it could get better if we had a helicopter in every garage,” he joked.
Email Megan Moseley at mmoseley
@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
