Overpass fixes will close H-1 tomorrow
A 1:30 a.m. closure gives football fans leeway to get home
The H-1 freeway will be closed early tomorrow morning to repair the Aiea pedestrian overpass that was damaged Sept. 5 by an oversize load on an Army truck.
The westbound lanes will be closed at the Halawa Interchange at 1:30 a.m. until 5 a.m. tomorrow. The state likely will close the Honolulu-bound lanes for about 30 minutes while the concrete slab is lifted, Ishikawa said. The slab will be lifted after 2:30 a.m., and traffic will be diverted off the Pearl City offramp and returned to H-1 at the Aiea onramp.
Fans attending the University of Hawaii football game and heading Ewa-bound on H-1 should plan alternate routes after 1:30 a.m. The H-1 westbound closure will extend to the Pearl City offramp.
"It'll give folks about two hours to use H-1 to get home Ewa-bound," said Scott Ishikawa, state Department of Transportation spokesman. "We'll monitor traffic at the stadium as well to see how things are going. We think most people should be heading home before 1:30."
The Transportation Department delayed the road closure from the usual time of 9 p.m. on weekdays to accommodate UH fans leaving Aloha Stadium.
A contractor for the state had been doing preliminary overnight repairs for the $500,000 project this week.
Construction crews will lower a 60,000-pound, 80-foot-long span of concrete into place, replacing the section of the walkway that was demolished. The concrete slab has already been cast and is ready to be installed.
In the following weeks, crews will pour concrete to make the surface of the walkway and add guardrails.
"We'll still need subsequent lane closures, but nothing at a magnitude of Sunday's closure," Ishikawa said.
The state saved the heavy work for Sunday when traffic is expected to be lighter than other days and when the Zipper Lane, which is usually deployed at 3 a.m., is not in use.
"If there's a glitch, if we run a little past 5, it's still not too bad," said Ishikawa. "If we did it on a weekday, it doesn't give us much room for error."
