The state Department of Transportation is seeking public comment for a proposed widening of the H-1 freeway.
The DOT wants to add an eastbound lane to the interstate from the Ola Lane overpass to the Likelike Highway offramp.
A draft environmental assessment for the proposal was posted Wednesday, and is available for public review and comment.
DOT deputy director Ed Sniffen says the additional lane would improve safety by eliminating the merge between traffic on H-1 and Moanalua Freeway.
"Getting rid of that merge gets rid of that concern for the left lane and the right lane to interact. As you can see, when you’re driving through that area, if there’s poor decisions that are being made, it makes it very difficult for that merge to be safe," Sniffen said.
"The second is if we get rid of that merge, we’ll have more capacity through that area — we start eliminating some of the congestion and delay in that portion. So it can reduce the travel through that area on average, throughout the day, by three to five minutes. And that doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you consider there’s 80,000 vehicles that travel that corridor per day, that’s quite a big savings on the system," he said.
Sniffen says construction could start as soon as the end of next year.
The public review and comment period ends on Jan. 7. Click here for more information.
