Pali Highway town-bound lanes expected to reopen Sunday night

The Pali Highway’s town-bound lanes are slated to reopen at 7 p.m. Sunday, Christmas Eve, after a multi-day closure due to a landslide, state officials said.

The town-bound lanes have been closed since Wednesday after torrential rains brought trees and mud down from the slope and across the roadway about 100 yards outside of the second tunnel.

The closure is currently from Castle Junction to the vicinity of Nuuanu Pali Drive.

Crews today continued to remove debris and unstable trees and will clean the road and replace safety reflectors before reopening the town-bound lanes, according to the Hawaii Department of Transportation.

There may still be intermittent closures of a single lane on the Kailua-bound side of Pali Highway, lasting no more than 30 minutes at a time, as the debris is being removed, DOT said.

In the meantime, motorists are encouraged to use Likelike Highway or the H-3 freeway for travel between the windward side and Honolulu.