Saws buzzed louder than the traffic running along side the Ala Wai Canal, but Waikiki probably don't mind all the noise.

That's because on this Tuesday huge pipes that once made up a sewer bypass were on the way out. Getting rid of them was no small feat.

"It's a 750 foot section, so about 18 sections. It will take actually two days to get them over to the other side," said Russell Takara from the city's Design and Construction Department.

Each section of pipe weighed about five tons. Crews expected to take a few days to remove the large pipes from the sidewalk running along the canal.

The sidewalks and streets are a different story, maybe a week or two until there reopened. That's because repairs may need to be done to parts of the sidewalk. But after all that, finally, after a few years Waikiki residents get a break.

"You know you look at it and it's been here for quite some time," said Mayor Mufi Hannemann from the work site. "And now the residents will have this as a pedestrian path, the bikers will have a biking path. There will be more parking spaces here in Waikiki."

About two dozen or more. All this work the past few years to give the city options in case of another sewer line rupture, like the catastrophe in March of 2006, when the city dumped nearly 50 million gallons of sewage into the Ala Wai.

"There is always a chance of spills, but I think what we're trying to do is develop redundant systems that allows you to have an alternative way of getting the sewage to the plant," Takara said.

And while the temporary pipes are removed, other temporary measures remain.

It will likely take another five or six year before all the work in Waikiki is complete.

All part of a larger scale rehabilitation of Oahu's sewers. "We're setting aside 1.5 billion dollars over the next six years to fix our force mains 12:40 so that you don't have these sewage spills," Hannemann said.

The Total cost for the temporary bypass which once ran through Waikiki, $45 million.