STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2690

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 3255

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2022

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, to which was referred S.B. No. 3255 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HIGHWAYS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for capital improvement projects in the Waianae district to address traffic mitigation.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Environmental Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, Ulupono Initiative, Hawaiian Community Development, Bikeshare Hawaii, and one individual. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Transportation.

Your Committee finds that Farrington Highway is the sole major roadway on Oahu's leeward coast and the sole access route that links the Waianae district to Ewa and east toward metropolitan Honolulu. Traffic volume on Farrington Highway has increased from an average of twenty thousand vehicles per day in 2000, to fifty thousand vehicles per day in 2016. This situation not only creates daily commutes lasting hours, but the lack of viable alternate routes creates serious problems when an emergency results in Farrington Highway being impassable.

Your Committee finds that this measure is necessary to appropriate funds for capital improvement projects to attempt to address traffic issues on Farrington Highway.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Removing certain language from section 1;

(2) Removing projects relating to pedestrian overpasses;

(3) Limiting the capital improvement project to the Farrington Highway corridor infrastructure plans;

(4) Inserting an effective date of January 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

(5) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3255, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3255, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Transportation,

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CHRIS LEE, Chair