Schatz: Hawai‘i Set To Receive More Than $42 Million In New Federal Funding To Improve Roads, Sidewalks, Traffic Lights In Hilo, Honolulu

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) today announced that the Hawai?i Department of Transportation (HDOT)  and the City and County of Honolulu will receive a total of more than $42.5 million in new federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to support a improvements to roads, sidewalks, and infrastructure in Hilo and Honolulu.

“This new federal funding will help make streets in Hilo and Honolulu safer for everyone – drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians,” said Senator Schatz, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation.

Schatz’s office worked closely with HDOT throughout the grant application process to ensure the state submitted a strong, competitive application. The DOT funding, which comes from two Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grants, includes the following:

• Hilo Bayfront Highway and Waianuenue Avenue Intersection in Hilo – $17.5 million | The funding will be used to reconstruct roadways adjacent to and at the intersection of Bayfront Highway and Waianuenue Avenue to allow for a single-lane roundabout, ADA-compliant sidewalks and roadway crossings, drainage improvements, reconfiguration of parking, and other roadway improvements including new highway lighting, electrical infrastructure relocations, signage, pavement markings, pedestrian signals, raised crosswalks, landscape, traffic management devices, and other utility adjustments. In the past two years, this intersection saw three collisions and one tragic death, in which the police cited lack of bicyclist infrastructure as the reason for the cyclist’s unfortunate death.  

• Salt Lake Boulevard Complete Streets in Honolulu – $25 million | The funding will be used to add an additional lane and execute a complete streets redesign of a 1.5-mile segment of Salt Lake Boulevard near the newly opened Halawa Rail Station. The project includes expanding the roadway from 2-lanes to 4-lanes, turning lanes, dedicated bicycle lanes, widened ADA sidewalks, waterlines, utility relocations, stormwater drainage system, bioswale, lighting, and traffic signal upgrades. This is the final segment of a project started in the 1970s, and as such acts as a traffic bottleneck for the corridor.

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