Skip to main content

Hawaii Route 3400 (the amalgamation of former Hawaii Route 34 and former Maui County Route 341)

By


Hawaii Route 3400 is a 2.6-mile State Highway located on the Island of Maui in the Wailuku and Kahului areas.  Hawaii Route 3400 is comprised of portions which were once part of Hawaii Route 34 on Kahului Beach Road and Maui County Route 341 on Waiehu Beach Road.  Modern Hawaii Route 3400 now bridges Hawaii Route 32 at Kaahumanu Avenue in Kahului north to Hawaii Route 340/Maui County 330 at Kahekili Highway near Wailuku. 


Part 1; the evolution of Hawaii Route 34 and Maui County Route 341 into Hawaii Route 3400

The Island of Maui seemingly was not part of the original World War II era Hawaii Route System.  Circa 1955 the United States Bureau of Public Roads renumbered the Hawaii Route System.  The 1955 Hawaii Route Renumbering saw most of the conventions utilized by the current Hawaii State Route System established.  Primary Hawaii Routes were given two-digit numbers whereas Secondary Hawaii Routes were given three-digit numbers.  The Hawaii Routes were assigned in sequence for what Island/County they were located on coupled with what Federal Aid Program number they were tied to.  In the case of the Island of Maui it was assigned numbers in the range of 30-40.  

Hawaii Route 34 was aligned from Hawaii Route 32 at Kaahumanu Avenue in Kahului west through Wailuku on a partially completed downtown bypass via lower Main Street and approximately half a mile of Waiale Road.  Hawaii Route 34 was connected to Hawaii Route 30 south of downtown Wailuku via non-state-maintained Koa Drive.  Maui County Route 341 was aligned north from Hawaii Route 34 at lower Main Street via what is now Waiehu Beach Road and Lower Waiehu Beach Road to Waiehu Beach Park.  The original configurations of Hawaii Route 34 and Maui County Route 341 can be seen on the 1955 United States Geological Survey map of Wailuku.  

According hawaiihighways.com a 1967 Hawaii Department of Transportation document recommended the removal of Hawaii Route 34 from the Federal-Aid Highway System and by proxy State Highway System.  This measure seems to have been taken due to Koa Drive never been taken on as a State maintained facility which meant Hawaii Route 34 never fully functioned as the bypass of downtown Wailuku it was intended to be.  

Despite being a mainline State Highway, it appears Hawaii Route 34 may have been always signed with "bypass" placards.  A 2001 era image of a Hawaii Route 34 shield along with a bypass placard can be seen on hawaiihighways.com here.  

1.5 miles of Maui County Route 341 (Waiehu Beach Road) from lower Main Street to Waiehu Stream and 4.3 miles of Kahekili Highway north of Waiehu Stream were to Camp Maluhia were recommended to be added to the State Highway System.  This led to construction of a new connecting branch of Waiehu Beach Road directly to Kahekili Highway.  This new construction led to the designation of Hawaii Route 340 which followed Kahului Beach Road (formerly lower Main Street) 1.1 miles, Waiehu Beach Road for 1.5 miles and replacing Hawaii Route 33 over Kahekili Highway for 4.3 miles.  Hawaii Route 340 can be seen on the 1983 United States Geological Survey Map of the Wailuku area.  



It is unclear when Hawaii Route 3400 replaced Hawaii Route 340 between Kaahumanu Avenue and Kahekili Highway.  Hawaii Route 3400 is shown to be interchange with Hawaii Route 340 on the 2017 United State Geological Survey map of the Wailuku area.  Hawaii Route 340 shields strangely are occasionally in place along modern Hawaii Route 3400.  


Part 2; a drive on Hawaii Route 3400

Hawaii Route 3400 begins via a right-hand turn from the terminus of Maui County Route 330 on Kahekili Highway onto Waiehu Beach Road.  



Hawaii Route 3400/Waiehu Beach Road eastbound intersects former Maui County Route 341 at Lower Waiehu Beach Road.  

Hawaii Route 3400/Waiehu Beach Road continue east to Kahului Beach Road and lower Main Street.  Hawaii Route 3400 makes a left hand turn onto Kahului Beach Road whereas Hawaii Route 34 would have once gone in both directions.  For unknown reasons the approach to Kahului Beach Road and lower Main Street is signed "junction Hawaii Route 340."


Hawaii Route 3400 continues east via Kahului Beach Road where it terminates at Hawaii Route 32/Kaahumanu Avenue (GSV image used).


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

By
  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two
1 comment
Read more

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third
Post a Comment
Read more