State transportation officials think a solution to rush-hour bottlenecks on the H-1 freeway in Makiki could be just paint strokes away.
They are considering a proposal to re-stripe the freeway between Punahou Street and Pali Highway to create a fourth lane in each direction. A second phase, from Pali Highway to Middle Street, could follow.
4 LANES
The proposed changes would add a lane in each direction of H-1 freeway from Punahou Street to Middle Street. Lanes would be narrowed to 10 feet and shoulders all but eliminated to squeeze in the fourth lane.
3 LANES
The current lanes of the freeway from Punahou Street to Middle Street are 111⁄2 feet wide. The shoulder near the center divider is 3 to 4 feet wide on average, and the right shoulder is 4 to 6 feet wide. |
The freeway in those areas is now three lanes each way.
The plan would use the existing road space to squeeze in the fourth lane, narrowing lanes to 10 feet from the current 111⁄2 feet, Department of Transportation spokesman Dan Meisenzahl said.
For perspective, a Ford F-250 full-size pickup truck is 6 feet 8 inches wide (not counting side-view mirrors), while a Toyota Yaris compact sedan is 5 feet 7 inches wide, according to the carmakers’ websites.
Tour buses and semitrailer trucks are 8 to 81⁄2 feet wide.
Freeway shoulder lanes would be nearly eliminated, Meisenzahl said. He said the shoulders are about 3 to 4 feet wide near the center divider and 4 to 6 feet wide on the outside lanes.
Meisenzahl said state officials have not made a final decision. He said the plan also needs federal highway safety approval.
"We really are in the early stages," he said.
Because of the narrower lanes, the speed limit in that stretch would be reduced by about 5 mph, Meisenzahl said. The speed limit right now is 50 mph in that area.
The cost of re-striping would be "minimal," and the work would be done at night, he said.
John Steelquist, neighborhood board chairman for the Makiki-Lower Punchbowl-Tantalus area, said adding lanes in that area would help solve the "serious problem" of rush-hour traffic with motorists commuting from East Oahu to downtown and beyond.
"Anything moving people through would be good. … It sounds to me like a reasonable thing," he said.
Meisenzahl said the plan would eliminate the need to redirect traffic and install and remove traffic cones at the Vineyard offramp in the mornings — which now costs about $200,000 a year.
The plan is an effort to "think out of the box" and look for quick and less costly solutions under Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s administration, he said.
Under a separate proposal involving 90 percent federal funding, the eastbound lanes of the H-1 would be widened to three from two lanes from Middle Street to Likelike Highway and to four from three lanes from Likelike to the west end of Vineyard Boulevard.
The cost of the Middle Street-Vineyard Street widening is estimated at $104 million, according to the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Meisenzahl said freeway widening involving eastbound traffic is at the planning and design stage.
