The H-3 Highway in Hawaii

The H-3 Highway also known as John A. Burns Freeway on the island of O'ahu, is considered one of the most beautiful and most controversial freeway in Hawaii. Completed in 1997, the 16-mile H-3 connects Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Pu‘uloa, on O‘ahu’s southern coast, to the Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Mokapu Peninsula, on O‘ahu’s eastern coast. Interstate H-3 begins at the Hālawa Interchange with Interstates H-1 and H-201. The freeway then runs along a viaduct through Hālawa Valley for about 6 miles, tunnels through the Ko'olau Mountains, takes another viaduct built along the side of Haiku Valley until it reaches the town of Kaneohe. The freeway then continues to the Halekou Interchange finally terminating at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

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H-3 winds its way through stunningly beautiful scenery from windward Oahu through the Halawa Valley. In fact, it is so breathtaking that there was a major concern that motorists would drive too slowly or stop altogether, thereby creating a traffic hazard.

Orders for the freeway were granted in 1960, but construction couldn’t start until the late 1980s due to enormous community protest by environmentalists who wanted to preserve the natural environment and rural character unique to Hawaii. Environmental complaints and legal challenges halted construction at many points. Finally in an unprecedented move, freeway proponent U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye pushed through Congress to have the freeway exempted from most environmental laws with a bill that was passed in October 1986. This was followed by a series of court actions against the new law, but a final ruling allowed the construction to go forward.

H-3 is one of the most expensive Interstate Highways ever built, on a cost per mile basis. Its final cost was $1.3 billion, or approximately $80 million per mile. The highway includes a state-of-the-art traffic operations center that monitors traffic conditions in the tunnels and can detect stalled vehicles, vehicular fires, and crashes. Operators even have the ability to override all AM, FM, and two-way radio frequencies to transmit voice messages to any vehicle with an operative radio.

The high-tech tunnels feature transitional tunnel lighting, exhaust fans, emergency call boxes, cross passages, highway message signs, lane control devices, fresh air vents, runoff drains, fire boxes, magnetic loop detectors, carbon dioxide detectors, smoke detectors, traffic signals, video cameras, sidewalks, and weather stations. The success of the H-3 traffic management system served as a model for Hawaii's future ITS programs statewide.