Hawaii Island highway extension revived, seeks Army funding to ease traffic

A 10.5-mile link on Hawaii Island could cut a one-way drive by up to 6.6 minutes, ease truck traffic around Waikōloa and give South Kohala another route when evacuation routes clog. After years on the shelf, the Daniel K. Inouye Highway extension is back in play, with state transportation officials now working with the U.S. Army and the Federal Highway Administration to seek federal money for the road between Māmalahoa Highway and Queen Kaahumanu Highway.

The project has been around since 1999, shelved once during a long environmental review and again in 2018 after a draft environmental impact statement was already completed. In 2020, the state put the roughly $90 million project on hold because no state or federal funding sources were available. Now, the proposal is being revived as more than a road project. It is being sold as a traffic fix for residents, a logistics corridor for military and commercial vehicles, and a backup route for emergency access across the island.

That pitch carries extra weight on the west side, where the Army continues to issue convoy alerts for vehicles moving between Kawaihae Harbor and Pōhakuloa Training Area. The training area sits between Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea and Hualālai, and the convoys share roads with local drivers, freight haulers and growing Waikōloa neighborhoods. Later reporting on the 2021 Mana Road fire threat showed how quickly those roads can seize up, with Waikōloa residents facing gridlock when evacuation became a real possibility. The new extension would give trucks and military traffic a more direct east-west route, while taking some pressure off community access roads.

The state has scheduled a public informational open house for Wednesday, May 20, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Waikoloa Elementary and Middle School Cafeteria. Officials have said the extension would take about two years to build once construction starts. The original Saddle Road, built in 1942 as a one-lane road to connect military training facilities, was modernized and largely renamed Daniel K. Inouye Highway in 2013, a reminder that the route has always carried both civilian and defense importance.

For Hawaii Island, the revived plan is a bet that one more stretch of pavement can do several jobs at once: speed up daily travel between Hilo, South Kohala and Kona, move freight more cleanly, and give families in Waikōloa and nearby communities a little more room when the next emergency comes.