WEST MAUI — A process is underway to create a new vision for the future of 3.6 miles of Honoapiilani Highway from Lahaina to Kaanapali and the areas around the corridor.

Citizens are encouraged to get involved and voice their ideas at events scheduled next week.

The Maui Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), in coordination with the County of Maui’s Planning Department, will host a week of community visioning events for the West Maui Community Corridor Transit-Oriented Development Action Plan.

During the week of Feb. 27 to March 3, there will be a series of three public walking tours. Two tours will address the challenges of the Keawe Street and Honoapiilani Highway intersection, and the third will visit the Pioneer Mill area — a possible location for a future transit hub.

The schedule is:

Monday, Feb. 27, 4 to 5:30 p.m. — Tour of Keawe Street/Honoapiilani Highway, to be hosted by West Maui County Councilmember Tamara Paltin. Youth members of the Huliau Foundation will participate. The group will meet in the Lahaina Cannery Mall parking lot by the southern entrance to the center.

Thursday, March 2, 8 to 9:30 a.m. — Tour of the Pioneer Mill area, scouting a possible location for a West Maui Transit Hub. Participants will meet in the parking lot at the Outlets of Maui.

Friday, March 3, 8 to 9:30 a.m. — Tour of Keawe Street/Honoapiilani Highway, to be joined by Maui County Managing Director Kekuhaipio Akana. The group will meet in the Lahaina Cannery Mall parking lot by the southern entrance.

The walking tours will be complemented by community engagement events, including a meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the West Maui Senior Center at 788 Pauoa St., and Project Team Office Hours on Friday, March 3, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Lahaina Cannery Mall.

“These activities are critical to the corridor vision and our project and program recommendations,” MPO Executive Director Pam Eaton explained.

Following the update to the West Maui Community Plan, Maui County is developing this action plan to help advance strategies for a more walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented community in West Maui.

The focus is from Prison Street north to Whalers Village in Kaanapali, including 3.6 miles of Honoapiilani Highway and the areas within a half-mile of the corridor.

Eaton explained that this zone was selected in West Maui because it has a variety of commercial services, retail and residential development, public transit, community facilities and other features.

“It just offered the most opportunities and challenges and issues that we were hoping to address,” she said.

“You’re trying to bring people and jobs and services, and all of that, closer together, so that you could just take a bus, you could ride your bike, walk — things like that.”

Topics plan researchers are evaluating include improving the design of Keawe Street, which is congested with fast-moving traffic; how to get more cars off the road by improving public transportation options for visitors in Kaanapali Resort and West Maui residents heading to work; considering locations for a transit hub — a place where people could bike or walk to get on a Maui Bus, or ride in from other areas on the island; connecting traffic-separated pedestrian sidewalks and accesses; and improving traffic safety in areas.

Eaton said public input at meetings will be key to the process — “Finding out some things like what would it take for you to ride the bus? What are you looking for? What are areas that you are really concerned about? What are some of your top priorities in terms of how to improve the corridor along the access way?

“So I think it’s really trying to find out and prioritize what is important to people within West Maui in terms of making a corridor that is friendly, that is safe, that is accessible. What would it take for you to use it? Those types of issues and questions.”

In the process that will continue through November 2023, contributors will identify ways to make the West Maui Community Corridor more connected, more accessible, more sustainable and more livable.

For more information, visit www.westmauicommunitycorridor.org.

The West Maui Community Corridor TOD Action Plan is led by Maui County’s Department of Planning in partnership with Housing and Human Concerns, Parks and Recreation, Public Works, and Transportation, as well as the Maui MPO and the Hawaii Department of Transportation.

The West Maui Community Corridor is Maui’s second TOD corridor project. This master plan follows the recently completed Ka’ahumanu Avenue Community Corridor, which sets a vision for a transit-oriented community in the heart of Central Maui.