The Kakaako pedestrian bridge is nearing completion after a long delay

A potentially life-saving pedestrian bridge in Kakaako should be operational by the end of the year after several construction delays on the project, which was originally scheduled to be completed over a year ago.

Barring any further setbacks, construction of the elevated walkway across the six-lane center block of Ala Moana Boulevard between Ward Avenue and Kamakee Street will have taken just over two and a half years, or 31 months instead of the 17 months originally expected.

Construction of the bridge will take about as long as it would take to erect several 40-story residential towers in neighboring Ward Village.

On the positive side, a contractor’s bid to build the bridge for the state Department of Transportation in partnership with Ward Village developer Howard Hughes Corp. was $17.8 million, below the original estimate of $23.5 million.

The bridge for pedestrians and cyclists was first built in 2018 by Hughes Corp. designed to better connect the master-planned community — which to date includes seven completed condo towers, public parking spaces and a possible future light rail station — with the Port of Kewalo and Ala Moana Regional Park.

DOT quickly partnered with the company on the project, and soon after, the importance of an elevated crossing in the area for pedestrians grew as a safety measure following a fatal accident in January 2019 near the bridge site.

The tragedy was caused by a speeding truck that traveled along Ala Moana Boulevard and struck several people standing on a mauka traffic island at the intersection with Kamakee Street. Two pedestrians and a cyclist were killed. Four other pedestrians were seriously injured.

The DOT applied for and received a federal grant to cover 80% of the project cost, while Hughes Corp. offered to contribute to the local cost share by providing land for the mauka side of the bridge while also contributing joint design work and project management valued at $5 million.

“Given the expected increase in pedestrian traffic in the affected area due to the station and (Ward Village’s) population growth, the project will significantly increase pedestrian safety and eliminate pedestrian-vehicle interaction in the area,” the DOT grant application states.

The DOT estimates about 2,100 pedestrians and cyclists will use the overpass daily.

“This overpass will provide the community with a safe pedestrian experience and connect Mauka to Makai,” Simon Treacy, then-Hawaiian president of Texas-based Hughes Corp., said in 2019. “We look forward to this public-private partnership.” Developing a world-class public facility.”

Construction began in May 2022 and is scheduled to be completed in October 2023.

More recent estimates from the DOT for the bridge’s completion were February and then August, but proved to be overly optimistic. The agency said the delays were due to rework needed to meet concrete strength standards and long lead times to procure materials to replace communications and electrical infrastructure displaced by bridge landing work.

The project is one of at least three pedestrian bridge expansions planned in the state. The other two are in the conception or design phase.

One of the other projects is a bridge over the Ala Wai Canal connecting Waikiki to Moiliili for pedestrians and cyclists. The estimated $63.3 million bridge project has an estimated construction period of three years and is being led by the city Department of Transportation in collaboration with the DOT and the Federal Highway Administration.

On Maui, another bridge is planned to provide safe passage over the Piilani Highway for students at Kulanihakoi High School in Kihei, which opened last year.

U.S. Department of Education officials have estimated the roughly $10 million to $15 million project will take three to five years to construct.

Civil engineers say it may not be fair to compare the time it takes to build a pedestrian bridge to far larger and more expensive projects such as high-rise buildings because conditions such as site constraints, design, traffic adjustments, available labor and other factors may be unique be.

The first condo tower in Ward Village, Waiea, which opened in 2016, took about two and a half years to build and cost around $300 million alone. Another tower in the community, Ke Kilohana, which opened in 2019, took about the same amount of time to build.

But the most recent Ward Village tower, Victoria Place, took place in February 2021 and opened earlier this month after nearly four years of construction.

Still, Douglas Sarkkinen, senior project manager and bridge engineer at Oregon-based engineering firm Otak, said a three- to five-year timeline for building a roughly $15 million pedestrian bridge, even over a highway, is about double what he expects would .