Superferry Traffic Simulation an 'Educational Endeavor'

Operations will differ from demonstration, Superferry contends

The Maui News
Saturday, June 02, 2007

By MELISSA TANJI, Staff Writer

KAHULUI - Organizers of a traffic simulation believed they made a point Friday morning as traffic backed up on a short extension of Puunene Avenue to illustrate the effect of the arrival of the Hawaii Superferry.

"What we learned is there is a heck of a problem, as everyone figured it would be," said Ron Sturtz, a member of Maui Tomorrow Foundation, which was involved in organizing the event.

"If they had not delayed their launch, this would have happened in a month," said Irene Bowie, executive director of Maui Tomorrow.

The Superferry was scheduled to begin service in July, but that has been pushed back at least a month as the 340-foot-long catamaran goes through Coast Guard inspections in Alabama.

"We saw that dropping that many cars into one of Maui's most congested intersections at 9:30 each morning is simply crazy," said Greg Kaufman, president of the Pacific Whale Foundation, another organizer of the simulation.

More than 110 cars participated in the simulation that had cars staging at the end of Puunene Avenue, at Cary & Eddie's Hideaway restaurant and along Puunene Avenue near First Hawaiian Bank. The effort was designed to illustrate what would happen when vehicles come off the ferry and transit along the short Puunene segment to the Kaahumanu Avenue intersection.

Maui Tomorrow, the Kahului Harbor Users Association and Maui County are parties in a suit seeking to require an environmental impact statement on harbor improvements being installed for the Superferry .

The simulation was initiated at 9:30 a.m., the time the Superferry would arrive in Kahului and ran for an hour to demonstrate the potential traffic jam that would occur while the ferry is unloading and loading passengers and vehicles.

On Friday, the major tie-up was on the short strip of Puunene Avenue from First Hawaiian Bank to the end of the road along Cary & Eddie's Hideaway. Vehicles disembarking from the Superferry would depart on the short road segment to the Kaahumanu Avenue intersection.

The simulation angered restaurant owner Eduardo "Eddie" Hernandez Rivera who said organizers did not ask for permission to stage the cars in the Cary & Eddie's Hideaway lot. The organizers said they did ask for permission and received required permits for the demonstration.

"I haven't been pro-ferry or anti-ferry, but now I'm anti-anti-ferry," Hernandez Rivera said Friday afternoon.

He said those participating in the simulation were rude and confrontational as he tried to get them to leave his parking lot if they were not patronizing the restaurant.

If he recognized any of the participants as his customers, he was happy to let them use the parking lot, he said.

"I've never seen them before," he said.

Hernandez Rivera said he doesn't foresee any problems with Superferry traffic as he doesn't open his doors until 11 a.m., the time the Superferry is scheduled to leave the harbor.

His neighbor, First Hawaiian Bank, hired two off-duty police officers to help its customers enter and exit the bank during the simulation.

"The traffic was definitely heavier than your typical Friday morning," said Mitchell Nishimoto senior vice president and Maui region manager for the bank.

But he said the traffic was manageable with the two off-duty officers to assist.

"Our customers got in and out OK," he said.

The bank is taking a "wait and see approach" on how to handle increased traffic on when the Superferry is in operation, he said.

"It's really hard to say whether it was a true or accurate portrayal of what the traffic will be like," Nishimoto said of the demonstration Friday.

The simulation was an inconvenience to bank customers, with customers saying they will think twice about the effects of the Superferry on the roadway to the bank.

"It's really going to be crazy," said bank customer Robin Prais of Pukalani.

Prais said she already felt that there is not adequate infrastructure to accommodate the Superferry and its passengers arriving and leaving Kahului Harbor. The Superferry has a capacity of 900 passengers and more than 200 passenger vehicles and large trucks and vans.

She said she might adjust her schedule to avoid the bank when the Superferry is in the harbor.

John Obrero of Kahului said traffic was "very high" as he arrived at the bank when the simulation was going on. He said he thought to himself, "How can I get inside the bank?"

He said he saw a benefit in the Superferry to be able to take his car to the other islands for visits. But, he said, "More traffic, I guess not."

Sturtz called the simulation a "mutually educational endeavor."

But he said the two police officers controlling traffic to the bank parking lot pushed the traffic tie-up further back on Puunene and away from the Puunene-Kaahumanu Avenue intersection.

"How is this a simulation if they are controlling traffic here? What's going to happen if they are not here?" he said.

Still, Sturtz said organizers achieved one of their goals of showing the effects of a large number of cars being off-loaded from the Superferry.

"The bottom line is it was supposed to last an hour," he said.

An hour and fifteen minutes after the start of the simulation, there were still 20 to 30 cars waiting to get out to the intersection, he said.

Organizers initially planned to have cars leave the Puunene section, circle around Kahului then return to the Puunene Avenue segment to simulate vehicles waiting to get to the Superferry boarding site.

But congestion around the bank area was too heavy, and the plan was revised to just simulate disembarking traffic.

Police stopped traffic on Kaahumanu Avenue and the northbound lanes of Puunene to allow all of the cars out of the Puunene segment when the simulation went beyond its one hour time limit. Sturtz said that led to a back up on Puunene and Kaahumanu avenues.

"It was telling to all of us there is a problem here and we have to deal with it," he said.

Derek Barona of Kula who participated in the simulation with his white van said he waited about half an hour to leave Puunene from the vicinity of First Hawaiian Bank, heading to Hana Highway.

"It was kind of frustrating," he said, saying drivers disembarking the Superferry could experience the same thing.

Maui police Capt. Charles Hirata, an acting assistant chief observing the simulation with other officers, said he did not see any problems on Puunene or Kaahumanu avenues. But he noted the congestion on the short section of Puunene Avenue at the entrance and exit of the bank.

Hirata said the tie-up could be attributed to multiple factors, including the participants in the simulation obstructing the road and the fact that Friday was the first day of the month and a payday when the bank would be extra busy.

He added that cars involved in the simulation were not turning right onto Kaahumanu, which would accurately duplicate what could happen with traffic coming off the Superferry.

While police do not have a position on the Superferry, Hirata suggested Superferry officials may have to hire off-duty police to handle traffic and the traffic signal lights at the Puunene-Kaahumanu intersection may need to be adjusted.

Kaufman said only about three Superferry cars were able to get through the traffic signal at the intersection with each signal cycle.

One of the participants, Wailuku resident Charles Kaili III, said he was neither for nor against the Superferry's arrival but he did want to know more about its effects.

"I like see, will it be an impact? Do we need an EIS? I think there's a need," he said.

Laurie Horswill, another participant, said she saw some flaws with the simulation.

"Not everyone will come at the same time" as occurred in the demonstration Friday, she said.

"I plan to use the Superferry. I want to see what I need to go through to get to the Superferry," she said.

Operations will differ from demonstration, Superferry contends

By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

KAHULUI - Hawaii Superferry didn't think much of Friday's traffic demonstration to show how its business will affect traffic on Kaahumanu and Puunene avenues.

"Our gates weren't open," said Terry O'Halloran. "You can't really simulate the traffic without it."

O'Halloran, Hawaii Superferry's director of business development, watched the demonstration Friday. In a postmortem, he described a number of features in the Superferry plans that weren't part of the "simulation" put on by Maui Tomorrow and the Pacific Whale Foundation.

At least in early days, until people become accustomed to the ferry's presence, Superferry plans to hire off-duty police officers to help out at intersections.

The company will have its own traffic gatekeeper at the exit gate in order to control the flow of cars out of the harbor and onto the public streets.

Based on a traffic study done last year, O'Halloran believes a typical load can be cleared "in 15 to 30 minutes."

Although the ferry Alakai can accommodate more than 200 cars and trucks, Superferry officials believe a typical load will be around 110.

Busier days will require correspondingly more time to disembark everyone, O'Halloran says.

The state Department of Transportation also declared the event Friday was not an accurate simulation of how the Superferry will handle traffic flow. Spokesman Scott Ishikawa said state highways officials observed the Maui Tomorrow/PWF demonstration and reported seeing no significant traffic problems except on the Puunene Avenue extension.

The reason Superferry planners don't believe the traffic will be as bad as

the Maui Tomorrow/PWF demonstration attempted to show is that they have what they believe will be a smooth circulation plan.

The ferry will dock at 9:30 a.m. Travelers planning to leave Maui will arrive at their own convenience any time up to departure at 11 a.m. Once vehicles pass through the Kaahumanu-Puunene intersection, they will turn right at one of two entrances.

One is for cars, the other for commercial vehicles.

Because the Superferry site has several parking areas, O'Halloran does not expect arriving traffic to back up onto Puunene.

Coming out is a different story. The makai stub of Puunene has three business driveways - First Hawaiian Bank, Cary & Eddie's Hideaway restaurant and a real estate office.

Puunene has limited storage capacity in its short length, and on a busy morning (like Friday, a payday and the first day of the month), the bank generates enough traffic to back up traffic to its own driveway entrance.

O'Halloran says a gatekeeper at the Superferry exit will control the flow of vehicles onto Puunene, taking into account the bank's needs.

There was a lot of congestion Friday morning because cars taking part in the demonstration were making U-turns or parking at the end of Puunene or in the restaurant lot.

O'Halloran says that no Superferry traffic should ever have to go there.

On Aug. 2, Circuit Judge Joel August will hold a hearing on traffic around the harbor. On Wednesday, he ruled that the state Harbors Division did not have sufficient information to issue a finding of no significant impact on harbor traffic in its 2025 harbor master plan.

At the least, August is likely to require a traffic impact assessment as part of the remedy for that error.

The judge mentioned that Superferry's own traffic study is available to the state now, although it was not when the 2025 FONSI was signed.

When Superferry will begin operating is uncertain. Coast Guard certification trials of the first ferry, the Alakai, are taking longer than originally anticipated.

The Superferry was scheduled to start operating early in July. O'Halloran said the company doesn't know yet how soon the Coast Guard will be through but expects the wait will be weeks rather than months.

Friday's experiment did not include pedestrians or tour buses and taxis, but O'Halloran said Superferry has plans to accommodate those as well.

Transient vehicles (those not going onto the ferry) will pull into the first entrance on Puunene along with passenger cars. They will be directed down an internal driveway to drop off passengers and will go out Wharf Street, where there is a traffic signal at Kaahumanu Avenue.