clarification on rush hour

[ebonyeyes]

Hours of reading TR... trying to figure out rush hour in the am and pm. I am gathering that morning rush hour is worse than evening. Morning rush hour starts around 6??? lasts a couple of hours??? Evening rush hour starts around 5??? also lasts a couple hours??? Can't believe I am driving myself crazy already planning for a trip that DOES NOT include parks and FP!!!

 

[Pete W.]

Hours of reading TR... trying to figure out rush hour in the am and pm. I am gathering that morning rush hour is worse than evening. Morning rush hour starts around 6??? lasts a couple of hours??? Evening rush hour starts around 5??? also lasts a couple hours??? Can't believe I am driving myself crazy already planning for a trip that DOES NOT include parks and FP!!!

Rush hour is very early both for the morning and evening commutes since most folks work earlier hours than is customary on the mainland, so in general terms be prepared for rush hour traffic between 5am and 8am and between 3pm and 6:30pm. As with most things, it's best to prepare for the worst and allow plenty of time to avoid being disappointed or feeling rushed. Also if you'll be at Aulani both during the week and on the weekend, you can consider doing a non-resort day on the weekend.

 

[corgi_monster]

Yes, morning traffic is worse than evening traffic imo. If you're driving from Aulani towards town, I would leave before 5:30 or after 8:30. In the afternoon, I'd start driving back to Aulani before 2:30 or after 6pm (6:30 if you're near Pearl Harbor).

I left Pearl City at about 2:45 this afternoon (heading east) and sat in about ten minutes of traffic. Westbound traffic was already backed up on Red Hill, but moving. This is pretty normal. Another 15 minutes and it would have been gridlock.

Traffic is significantly reduced during the summer when schools and the University of Manoa are not in session.

 

[ebonyeyes]

Thank you! A little earlier than i was thinking. Great to know, now I can plan a little better.

 

[buffettgirl]

Yes, morning traffic is worse than evening traffic imo. If you're driving from Aulani towards town, I would leave before 5:30 or after 8:30. In the afternoon, I'd start driving back to Aulani before 2:30 or after 6pm (6:30 if you're near Pearl Harbor).

I left Pearl City at about 2:45 this afternoon (heading east) and sat in about ten minutes of traffic. Westbound traffic was already backed up on Red Hill, but moving. This is pretty normal. Another 15 minutes and it would have been gridlock.

Traffic is significantly reduced during the summer when schools and the University of Manoa are not in session.

I agree . My son goes to school near the bishop museum. If I can get to school from my house in about 10 min. If he comes home at a normal time at 2:45, I"m back home in 15 min, but at Red Hill it's starting to back up. If he stays at school until 3:30, then it can take me 45 min to an hour to drive the same 5 miles. If I have to drive him to the orthodontist in pearl City, it can take me anywhere from 20 min to 90 minutes, depending on the time of day. Coming back east bound it's 15 minutes. The traffic is no joke.

 

[erin1715]

Yes, morning traffic is worse than evening traffic imo. If you're driving from Aulani towards town, I would leave before 5:30 or after 8:30. In the afternoon, I'd start driving back to Aulani before 2:30 or after 6pm (6:30 if you're near Pearl Harbor).

I left Pearl City at about 2:45 this afternoon (heading east) and sat in about ten minutes of traffic. Westbound traffic was already backed up on Red Hill, but moving. This is pretty normal. Another 15 minutes and it would have been gridlock.

Traffic is significantly reduced during the summer when schools and the University of Manoa are not in session.

Bolded is mine - that is a significant little nugget of information that I hadn't heard before. Thank you!

 

[trs518]

An easy way to check traffic times is to use Google Maps or Waze, around the time that you'l be traveling. You can change your start point to Aulani and then entering your destination.

 

[buffettgirl]

Yes, morning traffic is worse than evening traffic imo. If you're driving from Aulani towards town, I would leave before 5:30 or after 8:30. In the afternoon, I'd start driving back to Aulani before 2:30 or after 6pm (6:30 if you're near Pearl Harbor).

I left Pearl City at about 2:45 this afternoon (heading east) and sat in about ten minutes of traffic. Westbound traffic was already backed up on Red Hill, but moving. This is pretty normal. Another 15 minutes and it would have been gridlock.

Traffic is significantly reduced during the summer when schools and the University of Manoa are not in session.

Bolded is mine - that is a significant little nugget of information that I hadn't heard before. Thank you!

yes, but....rush hour traffic in the summer picks up significantly earlier, it seems. Everyone wants to get home to get to the beach.

 

[muffyn]

is there a difference on a saturday morning?
specifically going from north shore area to LA Airport?

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

Barring road closures, traffic going anywhere on a saturday morning from the north shore should be almost none...guessing you meant going to the airport (HNL), as driving from the north shore to LAX is problematic.

 

[muffyn]

Barring road closures, traffic going anywhere on a saturday morning from the north shore should be almost none...guessing you meant going to the airport (HNL), as driving from the north shore to LAX is problematic.

TY
wow OMG... i really messed that up!
have had LAX on my mind since we are flying from there.........another planning nightmare.
anyway, our flight leaves at 8am.. suggestions on when we should arrive? (also have to drop off rental)

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

Probably need to leave for the airport at 5:30 am at the latest, earlier might be safer tho.

 

[limegreenpeanut]

Our flight will be arriving in Honolulu at 3:00 pm. By the time we pick up our rental, it will be 4 - 4:30 pm I'm assuming, right in the middle of rush hour. Anyone have an opinion on whether we should try to have an early dinner near the airport to kill time before heading to Aulani, or would you go straight there despite the traffic?

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

You’d be driving right into peak rush hour at 4:30 (assuming its a weekday). If you feel safe leaving luggage in your rental car early dinner wouldn’t be the worst idea, theres not a whole lot of options near by...and most are fast food type options...there’s a few like ruby tuesday near by, but not really much in the way of places most would like to eat at when in hawaii.

It can be a tough choice to decide between leaving luggage in a car for an hour +, or driving for 2 hours or so in stop and go traffic (mostly slower than 15 mph).

You could also try doing a scenic route drive (head for the h-3 to kaneohe, then drive up through kahuku, north shore, etc. before turning back towards mililani and then towards aulani.) it’ll take longer but at least the scenery will be much nicer...and theres a good chance you won’t see much traffic...just a longer drive. Just gotta be sure theres no road closures that could turn a nice scenic drive into a traffic nightmare.

 

[nkereina]

An easy way to check traffic times is to use Google Maps or Waze, around the time that you'l be traveling. You can change your start point to Aulani and then entering your destination.

This helped us gauge what time to leave and worked well. The only time it didn't work out is when we were knowingly traveling during rush hour and there was an accident on top of it. A normal 45 minute drive to the windward side of the island took us about 90 minutes, but there's no way to avoid accidents unfortunately. I'll also add that whenever we drove on the weekends, traffic was relatively light and we didn't run into stop and go. So it's definitely rush hour that's the factor.

 

[buffettgirl]

You’d be driving right into peak rush hour at 4:30 (assuming its a weekday). If you feel safe leaving luggage in your rental car early dinner wouldn’t be the worst idea, theres not a whole lot of options near by...and most are fast food type options...there’s a few like ruby tuesday near by, but not really much in the way of places most would like to eat at when in hawaii.

It can be a tough choice to decide between leaving luggage in a car for an hour +, or driving for 2 hours or so in stop and go traffic (mostly slower than 15 mph).

You could also try doing a scenic route drive (head for the h-3 to kaneohe, then drive up through kahuku, north shore, etc. before turning back towards mililani and then towards aulani.) it’ll take longer but at least the scenery will be much nicer...and theres a good chance you won’t see much traffic...just a longer drive. Just gotta be sure theres no road closures that could turn a nice scenic drive into a traffic nightmare.

whaaaaa? You still have to get from the airport to h3 which is a complete cluster. And then once you get to the north shore it's all stop and go traffic as well, because there is only one lane in each direction. It would take you about an hour just to get to kaneohe, about another hour to kahuku and another hour an a half to get back to waipio/ h2-h1 split. So about 3 1/2 hours total. O r about 90 min to get to aulani directly.

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

Airport to h-3 isn’t that bad (back track a little towards mapunapuna rather than head straight to the freeway from the airport), the rest is longer, but traffic is also going to start getting better as you reach places after kahuku...longer but much nicer to look at while driving...and less potential crazy people cutting you off.

 

[buffettgirl]

Airport to h-3 isn’t that bad (back track a little towards mapunapuna rather than head straight to the freeway from the airport), the rest is longer, but traffic is also going to start getting better as you reach places after kahuku...longer but much nicer to look at while driving...and less potential crazy people cutting you off.

all the side streets, Puuloa, to salt lake to get to h3 is backed up as well. Puuloa to 201 to h3 is a nightmare.

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

just curious, but how do you get 90 minutes to aulani, but 60 minutes to kaneohe...given your opinions on the side streets near the airport that’d be 35-40 minutes just to hit the h-3 off ramp from the airport, and then 50 minutes from pearl city to aulani? would like to know what route lets me do that at 5 pm if I ever have to make that drive at that time.

 

[buffettgirl]

just curious, but how do you get 90 minutes to aulani, but 60 minutes to kaneohe...given your opinions on the side streets near the airport that’d be 35-40 minutes just to hit the h-3 off ramp from the airport, and then 50 minutes from pearl city to aulani? would like to know what route lets me do that at 5 pm if I ever have to make that drive at that time.

What? The airport viaduct is always backed up, but if you're going to kaneohe you miss the rest of the highway traffic. It probably wouldn't even take an hour to get to the windward side, just depends on the day and how heavy the traffic is. But if you take the side roads, and come up onto 201, and say you enter the 201 at puualoa, then you're completely jammed all the way to the h1 split past redhill, even though it's only like a mile or 2, it's taken me 30 minutes to get that far some days. I'm not sure where you're going. You're advocating driving clear around the island to save some traffic. There's still going to be traffic. I'm not really sure where you're going with this.