What a successful cleanup that Smart Living Hawaii, Eco Rotary Club of Kaka’ako and many others planned and held on April 23, 2022 during Volunteer Week Hawaii! Christina Laney Mitre and Lori McCarney both got together with the City and County of Honolulu to tackle this endeavor and have found a huge and growing community of support for this beloved path and commuter route for cyclists. We were honored to receive a Certificate of Recognition from the City and County of Honolulu on May 4, 2022 introduced by Council Member Brandon Elefante and thank everyone who helped maintain this path over the years.
For the past 18 months we have been very active on the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail - Bike Path due to the unexpected deferred cleanups and maintenance in the beginning of the COVID pandemic. It was getting very bad with illegal dumping, piling up of stolen/abandon cars that would be stripped and scrapped for their parts illegally, homeless encampments growing by the dozens and unsafe conditions due to all the illegal activity. Check out the video below from KHON2 news on the car removal, cleanup and beautification on the trail.
This path needs our continual help! We remove 8-12+ tons of trash at each clean up with hundreds of volunteers. On April 23, 2022 we had over 200 volunteers on the path, collected over 5.28 tons of burnable trash & metals, removed 30+ stolen/abandoned vehicles and 79 tires. This didn't include the trash removal and maintenance work the City did prior to the cleanup. Our mission is to clean up the path on a regular basis so it keeps it activated with our community and less riff-raff. The more positive activation the less homeless camps pop up, less abandoned/stolen vehicles with chop shops and illegal activity. We have been working with the City and County of Honolulu, numerous nonprofits, other Rotary Clubs, local businesses who are on the path, HPD and even the Navy. The City and County has been our greatest supporter and working with Council Member Brandon Elefante has been an integral part to the current success. HPD assists with sweeping and informing the homeless camps of our clean up prior to the cleanup and also patrol the path the entire clean up for our safety. This is a huge initiative we have spearheaded and have chosen to continue.
This path not only needs our help keeping it clean but it is the longest stretch of a safe riding path off our roads with cars. This path is to connect to another 10 miles or so to Kapolei and run along the rail line and act as a huge support to those getting to and from the rail from their homes without needing a car. Last but not least, it’s a historic trail with native wildlife, beautiful scenery and spectacular sunsets that we as a community can enjoy with our families year round. These are all things that sparked our interest as a community. Christina Laney Mitre with Smart Living Hawai’i has the privilege to work with Lori McCarney, another Eco Rotarian of who is an active bicyclist and was the recent Executive Director of Hawai’i Bicycling League and the one responsible for starting Biki for Oahu! We continue to meet with government officials, HPD, Navy, Council members, the Mayor and more to help find solutions for this path and its bright future.
Above video clip from KHON2 news was a quick interview with Christina Laney Mitre for Earth Month's activities that Eco Rotary Club of Kaka'ako were hosting.
Hope this gives more insight as to how important this bike path clean up is and how passionate we are about making a difference here as we work together with all these community contributors.
Christina Laney Mitre
RS-67243, CRS, GREEN, SRES
808.282.1399