People traveling from Ko Olina and the Wai'anae Coast will be directed to an alternate route into Kapolei, beginning this morning at 8:30, as the state is closing the regular freeway off-ramp to conduct work on the Kapolei Interchange Complex.

The H-1 Freeway's Exit 1B will be closed until the end of 2010, the state said.

Residents, shoppers, merchants and workers heading to the heart of Kapolei will be directed to Exit 1A — the Campbell Industrial Park, Barbers Point Harbor off-ramp. They will take Kalaeloa Boulevard, Kapolei Parkway and Kamokila Boulevard to reach the main business district of Kapolei.

Exit 1B will be barricaded until the end of 2010 during the $16.6 million first phase of the Kapolei Interchange Complex, hailed at a recent groundbreaking ceremony as the long-awaited promise of easier motoring and an end to gridlock frustration in the Second City.

The project includes an H-1 Freeway on- and off-ramp at Kamokila Boulevard and Wakea Street. It will also include a west-bound freeway off-ramp near the Wet 'n' Wild Hawaii water park and a west-bound on-ramp that will give motorists coming down Makakilo Drive access for the first time to a way toward Ko Olina and Wai'anae without driving through Kapolei.

How folks will react to the inconvenience of fewer options and additional congestion remains to be seen, said Tammy Mori, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

"We will really know once the closure actually happens," she said. "There will be an inconvenience while this work is continuing until 2010. But I guess the big picture is that there will be a new entire freeway interchange, which will improve traffic flow in the Kapolei region in the future."