David Cabatu didn’t go near Oahu’s late-night traffic jams this week, but he felt the pain of a legion of stressed-out motorists nevertheless.
"I said, ‘Wow! This is crazy! This is amazing!’" the Honolulu resident said Friday, recalling how his Twitter feed was full of people stuck in traffic. "I just found it amazing traffic was that bad at 11:30 at night."
To be sure, if anyone was wondering whether the so-called Hawaii Carmageddon was a myth, wonder no longer — it has definitely arrived as witnessed by an especially bad week for motorists heading home amid a multitude of nighttime freeway and road construction projects.
But the braking and crawling along bumper to bumper is not over. The nightmare is expected to continue this weekend and next week as the state Department of Transportation has a full slate of road projects and lane closures scheduled.
Transportation officials, however, said a few construction modifications will be made to the H-1 Rehabilitation Project in hopes of easing some congestion in the hard-hit Pearl City area.
Instead of the previously scheduled three to four lanes of closures from Waimalu to Waipahu, only two lanes will be shut down from 11 p.m. Saturday through noon Sunday. Crews will limit closures to two lanes this coming week as well, they said, from 7:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. nightly from Monday night through Friday morning.
Meanwhile, construction will take place this weekend and next week in three other areas along the H-1, including full closures in the eastbound direction between the Vineyard Boulevard onramp (Exit 20B) and the Pali onramp (Exit 21A) Sunday through Friday from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. The DOT advises motorists to use Moanalua Road as an alternative route and to expect delays.
There will also be a full closure of Pali Highway in the Honolulu-bound direction between Kamehameha Highway and Waokanaka Street, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, for emergency maintenance of tunnel light fixtures. The DOT advises Honolulu-bound motorists to use the H-3 freeway or Likelike Highway as alternative routes and to expect delays.
While the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation will, for the most part, take the weekend off, it will continue this coming week with a full slate of road projects, including ones on roads and highways in Ewa, Waipahu, Pearl City, Aiea, Kalihi and Downtown/Kakaako.
The yearlong $42 million H-1 project has reached the point where — in order to progress further — the multilane closures are essential to complete some important infrastructure work, state officials said.
"The state DOT does apologize for the inconvenience to motorists caused by this week’s night-time lane closures," according to a statement issued Friday. "We do appreciate the public’s patience as we work to widen the viaduct to add an additional westbound lane between the Pearl City/Waimalu onramp and the Waipahu offramp."
Fuku Puckett ran out of patience Thursday night when he tried to navigate to his Mililani home from the airport area. It took him over an hour to go 5 miles.
Puckett, who owns Summit Realty in Aiea, said he thought he was doing the smart thing by turning onto Kamehameha Highway instead of the H-1. Turns out there were lots of construction and lane closures there, too.
"I was just inching along," he recalled. "You know how frustrating it is when the light turns red, and then it turns green — and then it turns red again? That’s what was happening."
What’s more, it took his son two hours to get home from his job on Kapiolani Boulevard in Honolulu, he said.
Puckett vowed to do his best to avoid this weekend’s mess.
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