Closing two lanes during rush hour on any day and not seeing crews working on site were two major complaints aired yesterday by motorists still fuming over Monday afternoon's westbound gridlock on the H-1 Freeway.

Because the state Department of Transportation anticipated less impact on traffic on a holiday, the Zipper Lane was deployed in its "in use" position for scheduled maintenance work all day Monday, reducing westbound lanes from six to four between the airport and H-1/H2 merge in Waipahu. The result: Some motorists were stuck in traffic for several hours.

It took Les Kwock nearly three hours to get home to Mililani from downtown. Kwock left downtown at 5:15 p.m. and got home at 8 p.m.

"The coordination (or the communication to the public) of this work was poorly done," Kwock said in an e-mail to The Advertiser. "The Zipper Lane being open was the major contributing factor. ... As others have reported, my frustration only grew when it was said work was being done but there was no one that I saw that was working. I do think this event was avoidable or at the minimum, the traffic could have been eased more with some backup plans."

Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa said the Zipper Lane has been deployed six times on a Monday holiday in the past three years for similar maintenance work without the traffic problems encountered this week.

"There was a backup last Labor Day but not as extreme as (Monday)," Ishikawa said.

Warren Yamamoto of the city's Traffic Control Center said peak-hour traffic on holidays is normally "almost as high as weekdays" and that Monday was no exception.

Motorist Camille Naluai of 'Ewa said she saw no work crews at 4 p.m. and wondered if the work was completed early.

"The smallest of circumstances can make the Leeward residents' commute an hour or two longer than usual," Naluai wrote to The Advertiser. "There is a lot of talk on how to solve the problem but then they go and leave the Zipper open during rush hour. ... They had all Christmas break to do (the work)."

Ishikawa said the state has few options other than a holiday to do this twice-a-year maintenance, which requires four hours just to unravel the Zipper Lane over a 12-mile stretch and another four hours to roll it in.

And that's not counting the actual maintenance work, so limiting work to nighttime hours would be difficult, he said.

"We can't afford to do this type of work on a Sunday because Sunday traffic is just as bad as Saturday," Ishikawa noted.

Ishikawa said the work was completed Monday and that crews may not have been visible to motorists in the late afternoon because they were off the road waiting to bring in equipment. Guideline striping on all 12 miles of the Zipper Lane was repainted Monday, he said.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.