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H-1 work
disrupts Waialae
night traffic

Westbound resurfacing will
be done from 8 p.m. to
5 a.m. for six weeks

---

By Treena Shapiro
Star-Bulletin

"Bummers," said Gordon Okamoto when he learned that H-1 westbound in the Waialae area would be closed at night for the next six weeks.

"But as nice as it is to drive on that, it's got to be done," the Palolo resident said as he waited for food at Zippy's on Waialae Avenue just before 8 p.m. yesterday.

Okamoto said he was impressed by how rapidly the state was doing the work. "They're doing a very efficient job," he said.

It took the state a little more than six weeks to complete the recent eastbound resurfacing project, and construction from the Kapiolani Interchange through the Lunalilo and Punchbowl offramps is expected to take six more weeks.

All freeway on-ramps from Waialae Avenue through Lunalilo Street will be closed Sunday through Thursday from 8 p.m to 5 a.m. for resurfacing.

In about four weeks, the closure will extend one exit farther, and drivers will have to travel surface streets to the Punchbowl Street on-ramp to get on the freeway. The entire construction project, including major sewer line work on Lunalilo Street, is expected to take 18 months.

Kazu Hayashida, state transportation director, said the previous freeway work generated few complaints and many callers just needed directions on the alternate routes.

Hayashida said the department has received compliments on the freeway's smooth surface, and the state's contractor will be given a bonus for the work.

As for the noise, with construction moving at 750 feet a night, most residences were only affected for one or two nights.

Marilyn Kali, spokeswoman for the Transportation Department, said the department was able to resolve all the complaints from residences or businesses affected by the eastbound work, sometimes just because the construction crews moved on so quickly.

According to Kali, the first night of construction was expected to include demolition on the McCully Street bridge, erecting barriers for a seismic retrofit under the Vineyard Street offramp and raising the median barrier.

While rain could potentially affect the resurfacing work because new asphalt won't stick to a wet surface, the construction crews were also expected to begin cold-planing three inches from the surface of the freeway.

The effects on traffic during the eastbound construction were minimal during the last phase, but traffic signals will still be monitored and signals on east-west surface streets could get up to three minutes of extra green time to allow for more traffic.

The biggest foreseen problem would be people exiting Waikiki and trying to drive up Kapahulu Avenue or McCully Street. Construction on the McCully bridge closed the overpass last night and the state expects to close the bridge again next Sunday.

"If you're going up there, you're going to get stuck," Kali said.

People did get stuck last night, shortly after the freeway on-ramp on King Street near Kapahulu Avenue closed.

While many drivers chose to cut through the University of Hawaii on Dole Street, drivers nearer to the traffic lights had to wait as construction crews moved equipment onto the freeway.

"It sucks," one woman yelled out of her car window, right before traffic started moving again.

The department is asking people leaving Waikiki to head west on Ala Wai Boulevard or Date Street to avoid traffic backup.

Felicity Silva of Kaneohe only found out about the freeway closure 10 minutes before it was due to happen, but wasn't too worried about how it would affect her getting home from Kaimuki.

The Hawaii Pacific University student said resurfacing was good, "but it's very inconvenient."

When the construction went eastbound, Silva learned that she didn't know her way around on the surface streets. "I got kind of lost one night going the back roads," she said. "I thought I knew my way, but I didn't."

Leann Luahiwa, who works at the Chevron gas station near the H-1 on-ramp at Harding and 10th Avenue, wasn't concerned with the closure and looked ahead to its completion. "The drive will be much nicer once they fix it."

And entering the 7-Eleven store on Waialae Avenue, Wayne Masuda summed up the sentiment of many others.

"Just so long as they do it at night, it's better," he said.