Long overdue repairs coming to ‘rickety’ Queen Street

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Long overdue repairs to one of Downtown Honolulu’s busiest streets are what the City and State will be doing along Queen Street in August.

Area businesses said they can not wait for the improvements.

There will be a collaborative effort between the State and City to repave and restripe a half-mile stretch of Queen Street between Cooke and Kamakee streets.

“It’s really, really a great day today to start the Queen Street, which is pretty rickety,” Sen. Sharon Moriwaki of Kakaako said with a laugh, “to start that effort and to move on to the other streets.”

Roger Morton with the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services said his crews will handle signage replacement while State Department of Transportation crews tackle the actual mill-and-fill roadwork.

“To restripe, reset the lane-age in this area, to make it safer, make it safer for bicyclists, pedestrians, drivers and transit throughout,” DOT director Ed Sniffen said.

Ownership of the road has been murky since 1901 and area businesses filed a lawsuit in 2014 over who is responsible for maintaining it — things finally got rolling in 2021.

“The circuit court judge ruled that these are government roads. These are not private roads, these are public roads,” House Speaker Scott Saiki said.

Officials said the roadwork will only be done at night to minimize business impacts and the repaving and restriping should be wrapped up by Monday, Aug. 26.

“August 12th we’re starting up and of course, you see the density of the businesses in this area. So we’re gonna to do it overnight. Make sure it’s the night time. We’ll start one direction and go the other way,” Sniffen said.

“If we did nothing else but fix streets, I think people would be really happy,” said Honolulu mayor Rick Blangiardi. “What we’re going to do here is long overdue and it’s going to be high quality. And I think everybody is really going to appreciate it.”

“I appreciate what you’re doing and businesses are, I think around here would appreciate what you’re doing, so I just want to thank you,” said Hamada General Store owner Elroy Hamada.

A new bus route that will connect Kalihi Valley to Kahala mall through Queen Street is also in the works for late August, 2024. DTS deputy director Jon Nouchi said it will be Route 7 and will join with Route 6 for the whole length of Queen Street.

“But more importantly, it’ll connect this neighborhood to as far as Kalihi Valley and as far as Kahala Mall. So in a one seat ride, you’ll be able to go that whole distance and it’s just a part of investing into Kakaako,” Nouchi said.