Approaching the first 100 days of this new administration, here’s what Mayor Caldwell had to say about roads in his State of the City Address on April 3, 2013:
Priority #2: Repaving Roads
Here is a statistic that will not surprise you: 43% of City & County roads are in poor condition. Simply put, we need to fix this. And we need to commit to a maintenance program that will keep the roads in good driving condition. I propose to spend 150 million dollars a year, re-paving 300 lane miles per year, over the next five years.
On this schedule, we will fix the majority of Honolulu city roads that are in bad condition, and I will start a re-pavement preservation program of the roads that are in “good” condition starting in July. In the last seven years, the city paved about 1000 lane miles. Those roads will last five to 10 more years with proper maintenance, which I am committed to do.
I want to thank Director Ross Sasamura of the Department of Facility Maintenance and Director Chris Takashige from the Department of Design and Construction for their dedication and focus on improving our city roads.
Every day in the newspaper and on TV, there are stories about the poor road conditions across Oahu. I welcome the coverage because it shines a bright light on a problem that was neglected too long, and that’s why we must take extraordinary effort to get our roads back in good shape, starting now.
My road repaving plan is an ambitious goal, but the taxpayers of Honolulu have spoken loud and clear – they want our roads fixed now. While bond rates remain low, now is the time to borrow money, put it into our infrastructure, and create work for our construction industry.
That’s why I proposed to increase the fuel tax a nickel/gallon which would have generated 15 million dollars to pay for bus service restoration and debt service for the road repaving projects. The city has not raised its portion of the fuel tax in 24 years, and it would have cost the average driver about 20 dollars more a year.
I am disappointed that the fuel tax did not even get a hearing this year, but I remain committed to finding the resources to fix our roads, and I’ll work with the City Council to do so. We are going forward and getting work out to the businesses and creating jobs.