Mike Roscoe pulled into the Costco gas station on Alakawa Street about noon yesterday and got a pleasant surprise: no waiting. Over the course of the day though, he might have been the exception.

"We're never not busy," said one station attendant working his way between eight lanes of cars waiting to fill up.

With the station still offering the lowest price in town ($3.09 for regular) and traffic swarming to three big-box retailers in the neighborhood, two-block-long Alakawa Street sometimes looks more like Ala Moana Center at Christmastime than what until a few years ago was largely an industrial wasteland.

"It gets a little hairy at times, but so far it's nothing that isn't manageable," said William "Tony" Tennant, who runs Buddhawelt, an Asian statue and antiques store tucked in amid the three big boys on the block: Costco, Home Depot and Best Buy, which opened in late July.

As the area continues to grow (Lowe's is the next big retailer planning to open nearby), some people wonder how much more traffic the neighborhood can bear.

"We've become a real destination," said Bernadette "Bernie" Young, chairwoman of the Kalihi-Palama Neighborhood Board. "Especially now with the gas prices, people are going out of their way to stop in the area on their way to or from work. The residents are getting frustrated."

By most accounts, the traffic has not reached disruptive or gridlock proportions yet. Despite a backlog of drivers waiting to find cheap gas or a parking space over the weekend, Kalihi police said no major problems were reported.

"It hasn't reached the point, like Yogi Berra said, that it's so crowded that nobody goes there anymore," Tennant said.

There are times, however, when the line of cars trying to get into and out of the stores or gas station backs up onto the street.

"Sometimes you come out of the lot and you have to wait two or three cycles to get through the light at Nimitz Highway," said Jonah Maehara, a sales representative for Koha Oriental Foods, which has a warehouse on Alakawa Street. "And they are very long cycles."

Officials hope that a new lane being built in front of the Best Buy store will help alleviate some of the traffic backlog on the Nimitz Highway end of Alakawa Street.

The new lane, which will be used to create a space for cars turning into the Best Buy lot, should be finished by the end of this month, said customer service manager Tom Luiz.

"That should make things more manageable," said Luiz, adding that the crush of traffic around the store that required extra off-duty police officers as traffic monitors in the first few weeks has subsided.

Young, the neighborhood board member, thinks more needs to be done.

"All these stores are changing our landscape and our lifestyle," she said. "We welcome the new businesses that the jobs provide, but we'd like to be sure the city and state are doing better things to keep pace."

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.