Since students returned to school last week, there has been a substantial increase in traffic congestion on Highway 11 near Mountain View Elementary.
“There’s a few things at work here,” said Puna Councilman Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder, citing a perfect storm of a new pickup and dropoff traffic pattern, the loss of some bus routes, first-week-of-school adjustments, and illegal parking on Highway 11.
The county and school are working together to find both immediate and long-term solutions.
“As with any back-to-school period, parents and commuters are asked to adjust their travel times accordingly to avoid peak traffic times near school campuses,” said DOE spokesman Derek Inoshita, who recommended parents drive with extra caution.
On Monday, Mountain View Elementary started using a special duty police officer to help direct traffic as a short-term solution. That officer will be on-site until the end of next week.
“For those parents that are unaware, parking and obstructing traffic on a state highway is prohibited by law, and offenders may be issued a citation,” Puna police Capt. Scott Amaral said in statement.
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said the new officer already has helped mitigate traffic, adding Amaral will have other officers patrolling the area throughout the coming months.
Another potential cause of congestion is the reduction of bus routes to Mountain View Elementary, resulting from staffing shortages at Roberts Hawaii, which provides transportation for the school. The staffing shortages led the DOE to cancel two of the five routes to campus, which has caused more parents to drive their children to school.
“It’s a service that was supposed to be provided to our kids and was then limited,” Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said. “They already have a hardship, but without those bus routes, there’s more hardship created.”
There currently is a quarterly fee of $72 for round-trip transportation, or roughly $216 annually per student, charged to families to take the bus to school
Mountain View Elementary Principal Adria Medeiros is in communication with the Hawaii County Mass Transit Agency to try and arrange public transportation for students and families until the routes are reestablished.
“The Hele-On transit system offers more routes, more programs and more opportunities for students and families to get where they need to go,” Mass Transit Administrator John Andoh said in statement. “Best of all, the bus is free, so there are no cost barriers.”
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said two options being discussed between the school and Mass Transit are a van-pool system, where parents are provided a van subsidized at $500 per month from the county to help students carpool to campus, or supplementing existing Mass Transit buses and routes to bring students to and from campus.
“There’s three routes that service the area around Mountain View school where most of the kids are going to be coming from,” sKaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said. “There’s really a neat collaboration there. We’re just waiting to see if it’s going to be realized or not.”
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder is hopeful more collaborations will take place in the future to deal with the growing district.
“This really is a growing pain,” he said. “Puna is growing, and I think the state and the county are going to have to work to find a route in that community that works well, because the school is only going to get bigger.”
So far, communication has provided the best solution.
“Mass Transit, the police department, and the school all just joined forces really collaboratively, and I think we’ve almost solved the problem,” he said. “But we’re going to have to look at it as a whole and find some better routes, and some better systems for our community.”
Email Grant Phillips at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com.