Commuters from Hawai'i Kai reported saving up to 10 minutes on their drive to Honolulu and traffic on streets neighboring the closed Lunalilo Street on-ramp was lighter than usual, Haraga said.

But many Makiki residents, denied access to the freeway off the Lunalilo ramp, didn't think the measure would be helpful to them.

"What's the point of having an exit ramp," said Bresy Sanchez, who queued up at Subway Sandwiches shop on Wilder Avenue, "when you can't get on the freeway?"

Others thought the problem state officials that hoped to remedy at Lunalilo might erupt at Punchbowl Street, where Makiki residents are directed to enter the freeway during morning rush hour, when the Lunalilo ramp is closed.

"You just move the bottleneck further down, yeah?" said Dennis Aloiau, a customer at Makiki's Sure Shot Cafe, "And there might be more accidents there."

That didn't happen yesterday, said Police Sgt. Gary Lum Lee, who monitored traffic on the Lunalilo ramp and surrounding areas, where he said traffic flowed smoothly.

"But a lot of the traffic going back to school hasn't started yet," he said, "so we'll see."

By closing the Lunalilo on-ramp to the westbound lanes from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on weekdays, the Transportation Department eliminates the crisscross of freeway-bound drivers merging with commuters leaving H-1 at the same spot, via the Vineyard off-ramp.

The experiment, which is scheduled to last 90 days, still allows freeway drivers to use the Vineyard off-ramp.

Drivers who normally use the Lunalilo on-ramp for the freeway are directed about another half-mile to Punchbowl Street, where they can turn mauka and head for the freeway.

Lisa Hamm, a Makiki residents who stopped for groceries last night at a neighborhood Safeway, said she thought that instead of limiting use of the ramp, a better approach would be to educate freeway drivers on how to best use the far right lane.

"If you aren't exiting," she said, "move on over. You're in the way."

She also said she hoped whoever designed the Lunalilo on-ramp in the first place would never be allowed near another freeway project again.

Haraga said cars at the Vineyard/Punchbowl street intersection never backed up for more than one 75-second traffic signal interval.

Cars merging onto the freeway at Punchbowl Street were able to get on the freeway quickly, he added.

"Cars were moving a little faster but it was much safer getting on the freeway where traffic was flowing," he said.

Traffic engineers had feared that the change might cause some confusion and heavier-than-usual traffic on some surrounding streets. At first glance, though, that did not appear to be a problem, said DOT spokesman Scott Ishikawa.

"Lunalilo Street is cleared out," Ishikawa said. "It is not as bad as it used to be."

Traffic on Pi'ikoi and Pensacola streets also flowed well, Ishikawa said.

Although most Makiki residents approached yesterday opposed the measure, resident Vince Shin said reducing morning traffic on Pensacola sounded like a worthy goal to him.

"Pensacola is always stuffed with traffic," he said. "It's worth trying."

Ishikawa said the Punchbowl street on-ramp is underused and appeared to handle the additional cars without trouble. But engineers will monitor the traffic light there to see if changes are warranted during the experiment.

A police officer also will be at the intersection for the duration of the experiment to ease problems and ensure the safety of schoolchildren in the area, he said.

The real test will come in two weeks, when an estimated 42,000 students return to private schools and the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. The department is anxious to see what kind of effect that will have, Ishikawa said.

"The reason we started this two weeks before school started was to get people acclimated to the changes," he said. "We definitely did not want to do this at the start of school."

The state tried a similar experiment in 1998 and found it shaved an average of 8 minutes off the travel time of an East Honolulu commuter. However, the trial ended after only two weeks, not enough time to let neighborhood drivers adjust or to evaluate how traffic patterns changed on local streets.