Most of a shared-use path on Date Street is smooth, a part of Honolulu’s touted but incomplete “Lei of Parks” concept that connects urban parks for bikers and walkers. But underground roots have created steep bumps on the path mauka of the Ala Wai Golf Course that send riders on a bouncy ride. 

Ciara Peña lives in the Nuʻuanu-Punchbowl neighborhood and gets around with her bike. She’s gotten used to the bumps on the Date Street path, she said. But when she rode over them about a year ago, an açaí bowl flew out of her basket and “went everywhere,” she said. “It was pretty embarrassing.”

In the most rugged section — where the bumps make bike rides feel more like bull rides — riders swerve off the pavement entirely, carving out a new path in the dirt.

Rebus Bonning was biking back to Mōʻiliʻili after a morning surfing session at Diamond Head when he rumbled over the roots. “It’s terrible to ride your bike over,” said Bonning, a staff member at the nearby ʻIolani School. “I swerve off into the little dirt path that’s on the side. But it’s pretty muddy right now after the rain.”

Bonning and Peña are two of about a thousand people who use the path daily, either on bike or foot, according to city data. Path users began to notice the cracks in about 2018.

The city knows it’s bad, but fixing it requires coordination from an alphabet soup of agencies.

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The city’s Department of Facility Maintenance has a work order in to repair the path. But first, the roots have to be trimmed by the Department of Enterprise Services and the Department of Parks and Recreation, according to Department of Transportation Services spokesperson Travis Ota.

The idea is to fix the path with minimal damage to the tree or trees. In a written statement, Ota said an estimated date for the work to begin is still to be determined.

“If that were the road, where people were driving, I’m sure it would’ve been fixed a long time ago,” Bonning said. “But as the bike path, I imagine it’s kind of low priority, which always drives me a little crazy.”

Who Is Responsible?

Dita Holifield, director of Honolulu Department of Enterprise Services, 808-768-5400.

Laura H. Thielen, director of Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation, 808-768-3003.

Gene Albano, director of Honolulu Department of Facility Maintenance, 808-768-3343.

Residents can also submit reports online at honoluluhi.citysourced.com; by email at complaints@honolulu.gov; by phone at 808-768-4381; or through the free Honolulu 311 app.

Update: Fixes Coming For Waikīkī’s Collapsed Walkway

A collapsed sidewalk in front of Waikīkī’s Barefoot Beach Cafe is scheduled to be fixed by the end of the summer, city officials announced last month.

Customers hoping for unimpeded views of the sunset as they drink piña coladas out of pineapples have instead been greeted by a chain link fence around a portion of sidewalk that collapsed onto the beach. Repairs started in late January and are expected to take about six months. 

When Civil Beat first reported on the problem at the end of November, the city was waiting for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin working in the water. 

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