Last May, powerful waves battering Oʻahu’s south shore collapsed part of a walkway into the ocean off Waikīkī.

The area languished for about a year as the city fenced it off for repairs. Beachgoing activities continued in the grassy area around it, but the chainlink fences blocked a popular oceanfront promenade enjoyed by locals and tourists alike.

It also put a damper on the view from Barefoot Beach Cafe, a charming outdoor restaurant with string lights and live music where the view is much of the appeal. 

“A lot of people come here and watch the sunset,” employee Eleanor Oster said. “So I feel like the fence was kind of blocking that.”

Civil Beat wrote about the collapsed sidewalk in late November. At the time, contractor Sea Engineering Inc. was working on a repair plan, and the city still needed to get a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

196 Days

Construction on the sidewalk started in January and ended on June 13, Department of Design and Construction spokesperson Cindy Cromwell said. That’s 196 days after Civil Beat published its article.

That wasn’t the end of the fences — next to the sidewalk, a large area of parkland had also been fenced off as a staging area for the construction equipment, and it needed to be restored to its former grassy state. It reopened to the public on Aug. 14.

Oster said customers tended to avoid sitting in that area since it blocked the ocean view. “There was this black tarp all around it, so you couldn’t see anything,” she said.

Tourist Desi Kerr of New York City recently visited the restaurant. Shown a picture of what the scene looked like last year, she said she probably wouldn’t have stopped by if it had still been like that. 

“It takes away from the view,” she said.

The Leaning Traffic Light Of Kalākaua

On the other side of Waikīkī, a large traffic light that spanned over the road at the corner of Kalākaua Avenue and Ala Wai Boulevard had to be removed last year so workers could deal with a burst pipe.

In its place, a new traffic light had been haphazardly reinstalled, its foundation less bolted-to-the-ground and more held-up-by-three–buckets. 

The temporary traffic light tried its best. But it was much smaller than the old one, and it faced the ground. This spring, four vehicle collisions occurred at the intersection in the span of a month.

“Nothing similar to previous years,” Department of Transportation Services spokesperson Travis Ota said at the time in an email. 

When Civil Beat reached out to the city in late May, Ota said the holdup was that the Board of Water Supply was still finishing work at the light. 

The light has been fixed, but Ota said he could not say when that happened. BWS spokesperson Kathleen Pahinui also was unable to provide information on when her organization finished work there.

Breaking The Cycle Of Destruction

Up in Kahaluʻu, a small pedestrian footbridge parallels a short section of Kamehameha Highway. It’s a cute wooden bridge, painted red and white, and it sits across the street from Sunshine Arts Gallery. 

But passing cars keep smashing into it.

When that happens, Sunshine Arts Gallery manager Laetitia Atlantis told Civil Beat in early June, the state Department of Transportation usually fixes the bridge relatively quickly. But at the time, the bridge had sat obliterated for about half a year.

That’s because a collision in January caused structural damage that required bringing in a contractor to install new underpinning metal hangers, DOT spokesperson Shelly Kunishige said. 

Visible construction work began on the bridge soon after Civil Beat called the DOT for comment. Construction finished a day after the story was published. Then it got hit again.  

“We’re so used to it,” Atlantis, the gallery manager, said last week in an interview.

That time, the DOT learned of the damage in early July and was able to fix it itself about a week later since the problem was more superficial. 

Asked if the DOT has a long-term plan beyond fixing the bridge every time it’s hit, Kunishige said the department is planning to issue a work order to shift the lanes away from the bridge and put a curb with visibility markers next to it. She didn’t have a time estimate on when the work order would be published. 

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