Working with, and on behalf of, the Community of East Maui. Advocating for more responsible tourism management and pushing for responsive government and visitor industry intervention.

We promote the most pertinent Hana Hwy. traveler information as an effort to improve road safety.

OUR KULEANA

Hana Highway Regulation was formed in 2016 to expedite highway data collection and stakeholder input processes for local government and the visitor industry, to help them more efficiently address tourism impacts that have plagued our East Maui community. Much of the rhetoric behind lack of resolution on this issue of visitor impacts along the Road to Hana was based on the inability to identify community consensus which led us to self-initiate and self-fund, a tour of town hall meetings from 2016-2020. These comment opportunities were held in small towns from Paia to Hana and through to Kula which is considered the official Road to Hana activity route. We have conducted traffic surveys, interviews with lineal descendants and local residents, visitor questionnaires and commercial operator compliance reviews. The information we collected over the last six years has provided us with a depth of comprehension on the core problems and potential solutions which we have articulated by way of summary reports, presentations and proposals for the public.

WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS WITH THE ROAD TO HANA

HISTORY OF THE HANA HIGHWAY

Hana Highway along the Eastern edge of Maui has become internationally renowned for the access it provides to this scenic and wondrous place. In recognition of this, President Bill Clinton designated Hana Highway as Hana Millenium Legacy Trail in 2000 and in 2001 listed on the National Register of Historical Places. Not coincidentally, the drama evidenced by the landscape also creates the greatest challenges for maintaining a reliable roadway. This coastline is best characterized by the Ko’olau Mountains and Haleakala Volcano. Hana Highway clings to the side of steep slopes, traverses broad coastal terraces and spans deep valleys leading to the sea. Prone to landsliding, Hana Highway undergoes continual repairs. With virtually no detours available, the highway is also a lifeline to communities and businesses. The region of East Maui is home to clusters of aboriginal Hawaiian villages with tenants who continue to exercise their subsistence culture that relies on natural resources from the mountain to the sea to ensure community health and well-being.

NEED FOR VISITOR MANAGEMENT

Increased pressures which are complicating our ability to maintain reliable access has prompted this initiative and civil volunteer organization. Resident volunteers actively survey the highway to support development of a regionally curated visitor management plan. The Hana Highway Regulation focuses on the entire North to South route, towns of Paia to Hana and through to Kula.

In 2017, we established the Hana Highway code of conduct and promoted these critical information points and safety guidelines through a series of press tours and embarking on visitor industry outreach with resorts, rental car companies and tour operators. Through our research, advocacy and work with the public utilities commission, we did substantially decrease the amount of unlicensed tour operators which were contributing to a once thriving black market offering of Road to Hana tours without the adequate permits and licenses to be conducting such activities. Our web surveillance committee monitors social media channels for content that offends community policy, including photos or videos that influence trespassing on private property and the exploitation or monetization of cultural sites. These volunteers provide communication support to make formal and cordial request that the content be removed. We have engaged with large platforms, social media influencers and corporate creators asking they remove media that entices visitors to seek out dangerous locations that culprit emergency rescue needs. This work is done as an effort to reduce visitor injuries and fatalities. 

Hana Highway Regulation is currently working to garner Destination Management Action Plan support from Maui Visitor and Convention Bureau and Hawaii Tourism Authority in order to implement our Visitor Information Personnel service concept which has proven a 96% efficacy rate in preventing illegal parking and trespassing on private property by visitors. Without such a service, traffic hazards and delays are inflicted upon our community and first responders that rely on this rural, often one lane highway. We are rallying for the visitor industry to back solutions that have proven outcomes of effectiveness instead of mechanisms that are information output oriented and based promotional marketing. We consider visitor messaging alone to be unacceptably ineffective in the scope of "improving road safety for residents and visitors" which was outlined as an objective by the State of Hawaii Senate and House of Representatives by way of House Concurrent Resolution. No. 29, passed in the 2022 legislative session naming Hana Highway Regulation as a stakeholder that the Department of Transportation is encouraged to work with to develop a holistic management plan for Hana Highway. 

Based on our experience, we encourage communities across Hawaii facing similar issues to take the initiative of organizing and gathering their impact and capacity data. It is important that the people of the various locations enduring visitor impacts are at the helm of destination management decisions. Only place-specific intelligence is capable of producing the most effective solutions possible. 

P.o. Box 81511 Haiku, HI 96708 Admin@HanaHighwayRegulation.com