Work on the long-awaited next phase of the Hilo Bayfront Trails project should be complete by the end of the year, a county official said.
The trails project is a decade-long plan to build nearly six miles of public pedestrian trails connecting the Hilo Bayfront to Hilo Harbor, but after the first phase was completed in 2016, the second has yet to begin construction.
The first phase of the project consisted of three sections: one connecting Mooheau Park to Pauahi Street, another connecting Pauahi Street to the Bayfront canoe hale, and a third connecting Pauahi to the Bayfront soccer fields, totaling about a mile in length.
The second phase is smaller by comparison, with two sections totalling about 2,000 feet. One section connects the soccer fields trail to Kilauea Avenue near the Waiamalo Canal, and the other connects Pauahi Street to the Kamehameha Avenue entrance to Wailoa River State Recreation Area.
Barett Otani, executive assistant to Mayor Mitch Roth, said work on the next phase of the trails can begin as soon as the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Historic Preservation Division gives the go-ahead.
“Once we have the concurrence from them, then we can start grading and all that,” Otani said.
But, he said, all work on the trails won’t be completed until later this year. Additional features of the trails such as ADA accessibility are being funded by a Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside Program Grant, a U.S. Federal Highway Administration program that funds improvements to state transportation infrastructure.
Matthias Kusch, president of Hilo Bayfront Trails Inc., which is partnering with the county on the project, said a bid has been awarded for the first section of phase 2, and could begin construction “soon.”
“What happened was, we got a grant from the Land and Water Conservation Fund through the National Park Service,” he said. “But the bid came in higher than what was in the grant.”
Kusch said the project then applied for the TAP grant, but the Federal Highways Administration informed Bayfront Trails Inc. last fall that in order to receive the grant, they would have to conduct an endangered species survey for the project area.
That survey has been completed and submitted, Kusch said, but now the state Department of Transportation — which administers the TAP grant — needs to review the results.
“Once it’s completed, I think we’ll get the go-ahead, and we’ll put it out to bid, but it’s a variable process so we don’t know how long that will be,” Kusch said.
Otani said the county hopes to complete work on the parts of the trails to be funded by the TAP grant “by the last quarter of this year,” although he repeatedly emphasized that no timeline is set in stone, and that the next step in the process is entirely contingent on when the state finishes its review.
Otani did not reveal the specific amount of funding allocated for the project because doing so would be “maybe not advantageous for the bid process.” However,he said the county in 2021 had applied for a grant totaling $846,000, which, in addition to a required 20% funding match by the county, would reach just over $1 million.
However, Kusch noted that part of the reason the matter has been delayed so much is the skyrocketing cost of construction. The cost of building a square foot of paved trail has increased by 260% since the first phase of the project was completed in 2016.
But, if and when the second phase is completed, Kusch said he hopes it will be popular enough to grease the wheels for future phases.
Ultimately, plans for the project include paths stretching from the Bayfront all the way to Kapiolani Street, allowing a person to walk from the University of Hawaii in Hilo to Wailoa park while only crossing three streets.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.