Interstate H-1 - History

History

Interstate H-1 was authorized as a result of the Statehood Act of 1960. The portion of H-1 that runs through downtown Honolulu opened in 1953 as the Mauka Arterial; it was added to the Interstate system when Hawaii became a state. This section has been largely unchanged since its inception and its design suffers from having too many on/off ramps, short distanced on-ramps, and on-ramps that enter the freeway almost immediately before an off-ramp (opposite of current design standards). The 'new' section of H-1 was, however, built to modern freeway standards.

The Hawaiian Interstate shields have gone through several changes. Early shields contained the hyphen as per the official designation (e.g. H-1); however, these shields have been updated with the hyphen removed (e.g. H1). As in other states across the contiguous United States, early interstate shields also included the writing of 'Hawaii' above the interstate route number and below the 'Interstate' writing. While the "Queen Liliuokalani" section of the Interstate H-1 has signs designating it as such (one eastbound at exit 1, the other westbound after exit 19), there are no similar name signs for the Lunalilo Freeway portion (the remainder of the freeway).