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It’s no secret Honolulu isn’t the most bike-friendly city.

On any given day, cyclists rolling along Waialae Avenue compete with cars and pedestrians for road and sidewalk space.

The city finishes a three-day test Thursday to see how motorists would respond if cyclists were given lanes of their own on Kaimuki’s main artery.

But already, that old tension between bikes, cars and pedestrians could be seen as the city shut down one of Waialae’s three downtown-bound traffic lanes.

Kaimuki residents, businesses and customers met the lane closure with a mixture of support, confusion and frustration. Some businesses were concerned that a bike lane would limit already sparse curbside parking in a neighborhood of walk-up storefronts.

“Good thing (the closed lane is) not on our side of the street,” said Miki Lau, a stylist at Touch of Beauty salon on Waialae.

Jim Ainge, Lau’s customer, said the traffic backup on Waialae from the lane shutdown made him about five minutes late to his appointment. He spent part of the drive stuck behind a bus, he said, which had slowed down because it couldn’t pass the bicyclist in front of it.

Others saw bike lanes as a positive way to give people more options on a street crowded with cars.

Kaimuki resident Joan McCarthy walks to work along Waialae, but she used to bike. Now in her 60s, she said she stopped for health reasons.

McCarthy said Waialae’s traffic issues are even more reason for the city to install bike lanes.

“I’m at the point where I think there are too many cars in Hawaii,” she said. “It’s a wonder we’re not sinking.”

Honolulu Director of Transportation Services Wayne Yoshioka said the city is in no rush to create bike lanes — even if it means delaying until after the avenue’s resurfacing in January.

“We’re in the study phase,” he said. City drivers timed their trips along Waialae before and during the shutdown.

The city will review traffic data in the next one or two months before sitting down with property owners and holding community meetings. Then, he said, the city will decide what to do next.

Yoshioka said the city has a number of options:

1. Eliminate a lane of traffic and place bike lanes on both sides of the street.
2. Place a bike lane on side of the street heading toward east Honolulu and paint “” – markers on the road telling drivers to share the street with bikes – heading downtown.
3. Eliminate no lanes, but paint “sharrows” on both sides of the street.

Affordable housing developer and bike lane advocate R.J. Martin praised the idea of bike lanes — but he said that after years of such bike plans and studies, he wanted to see results.

“We need to implement these things whether they’re popular or unpopular, because they’re going to create a better city,” he said.

Martin helped organize a rally in May in support of bike lanes on Waialae.

“Pedestrians don’t want bicyclists on the sidewalk,” he said. “Drivers don’t want bicyclists in their lanes.” Bike lanes, he said, would solve both problems.