By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
If construction work to widen the Punahou off-ramp of the H-1 Freeway over the next eight months wasn’t bad enough, brace for the likelihood that the nearby Ward Avenue and Pi‘ikoi Street on-ramps will be closed as well for six hours each day.
As part of the Punahou Street off-ramp widening project beginning next month, state officials are considering closing both the Ward and Pi‘ikoi eastbound on-ramps during weekday construction to help alleviate bottlenecks. There is no construction work on Ward or Pi‘ikoi, but with the interchanges being so close together, transportation officials wanted to steer motorists away from the area altogether.
The Punahou ramp is the busiest on H-1. Pi‘ikoi is only a half-mile away, and Ward a half-mile beyond that, both handling heavy east-bound traffic from downtown.
Hawaiian Dredging will begin work in mid- to late-March to widen the Punahou off-ramp, adding a second right-turn lane onto Punahou Street. State officials are considering shutting down the east-bound Ward Avenue and Pi‘ikoi Street off-ramps during construction hours — 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The proposed closures at busy Ward and Pi‘ikoi would cut down on traffic "currently merging with freeway traffic and adding to the bottleneck," state transportation spokeswoman Marilyn Kali said. "At least one of those on-ramps will be closed, but most likely it will be both."
The $2.7 million Punahou off-ramp construction project will include upgraded lighting and guardrails. One lane of the off-ramp probably will be closed during construction, Kali said.
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