On the good days, Leticia Davantes spends about an hour and a half commuting between her home in 'Ewa Beach and her job as a secretary at Tripler Army Medical Center.

ON THE BAD DAYS ...

"You get home so late that the kids are all there waiting for you," she said. "It's not fair to them really, but what are you going to do?"

For Davantes and tens of thousands of commuters like her, the daily drive up and down Fort Weaver Road is a tedious, sometimes grueling ritual, one that requires equal parts determination and resignation just to stay sane and financially solvent. The drive just might be the most frustrating commute in the state.

After years of promises and delay, help is on the horizon, city and state officials say. Efforts to widen highways, improve back roads, start a ferry operation and build a rail system, all of which have some potential to ease traffic congestion, are gathering steam in the area.

But it may not be enough. Even as transit officials plan infrastructure improvements, the area continues to grow rapidly. City officials estimate nearly 60,000 more people will live in the corridor by 2030. A number of other proposed traffic solutions are stalled or awaiting new funding.

"There's really no relief on the way. For every solution being offered, there are a lot of others that are being ignored," says 'Ewa Beach resident Garry Smith. "It's worse now than it ever was, and it's going to get worse still."

The distance from the H-1 Freeway to the end of Fort Weaver Road in 'Ewa Beach is about 5.5 miles. Plug the coordinates into an online site such as MapQuest and you'll be told it takes about 16 minutes to drive the distance.

In your dreams. The kind you have just before the alarm clock goes off at 5:10 a.m.

"Some days you can spend up to 45 minutes on Fort Weaver Road each way. It's exhausting," Davantes said.

And she's talking about just the part of her commute that gets her to the H-1.

U.S. Census Bureau figures show that the average 'Ewa Beach driver spends 40 minutes each way going to or from work, second only on O'ahu to those in Wai'anae, with an average 42-minute time. By contrast, commutes from some other O'ahu suburbs are relatively easy: Hale'iwa (33 minutes); Mililani (30 minutes), Kailua (29 minutes); 'Aiea (25 minutes) and La'ie (19 minutes).

The national average is 26 minutes.

"And yet people keep buying homes out here," said Smith, a retired Navy man who moved into his 'Ewa Beach home in 1978, when Fort Weaver Road was a two-lane, mostly rural road. "They hear the stories about traffic but they don't believe it. They look at the home on a Saturday, when traffic isn't so bad. Then on the first Monday of work, they find out the truth."

Officials say they are making progress in having the 'Ewa Plain infrastructure catch up with the housing spurts that hit the area hard, first in the 1980s and again in the late 1990s.

Within the next two or three years, a portion of Fort Weaver Road will be widened from four to six lanes, three lanes of the long-planned North-South connector road will be built, and a number of roads between there and Kapolei will be built or improved at a cost of more than $100 million.

'EWA BEACH LEFT OUT

The transit line, if it runs on Fort Weaver Road at all, would still require commuters to use cars or a bus to reach a rail station. The ferry line, as currently envisioned, would bypass Iroquois Point and 'Ewa Beach for Kalaeloa. City officials still hope to have a ferry running by next year, but the rail system will have to wait until at least 2011.

"We can't bring the rail or ferry to everyone's doorstep," said Mel Kaku, city director of transportation services. "But we can provide alternatives like a park-and-ride or shuttle buses that allow people to get out of their car and avoid the final 15 miles of their commute into town."

DETOURING TO SAVE TIME

Many commuters go out of their way to avoid Fort Weaver Road. With 62,000 cars on the road every day, and up to 12 traffic signals to navigate, many 'Ewa drivers detour miles out of their way, using less developed streets such as Fort Barrett and Geiger roads, to reach the H-1 via Kapolei. The distance is longer, but the time can be shorter. The frustration factor is definitely less.

"On Fort Weaver Road, I have to stop for at least nine or 10 traffic signals. By using Fort Barrett Road, where there are no signals, I can save at least 10 minutes each way," said Davantes, who drives a state-supported Vanpool vehicle and picks up several fellow Tripler workers on her winding route to work.

Beyond the Fort Weaver Road widening project, transportation officials say there are a number of projects, big and small, that could provide some relief for 'Ewa drivers. The biggest ones include completing the North-South Road and Kapolei Parkway projects, ultimately providing a second direct link between the sprawling Ocean Pointe development near 'Ewa Beach and H-1.

TOO LITTLE, TOO SLOW

Critics, however, say that relief measures aren't coming fast enough. The second phase of the Fort Weaver widening project has been delayed for almost three years because of the bankruptcy of an initial design consultant. The North-South Road ultimately will be a six-lane arterial, but only three lanes are being built now.

"We're being piecemealed to death. Why don't they build it all once? It would cost less money to build at one time than to wait until later," said Tom Berg, an aide to Rep. Rita Cabanilla, D-42 (Waipahu, Honouliuli, West Loch, 'Ewa).

Berg also notes that an east-west connector road linking Fort Weaver and the North-South road has been on planning maps for years, but no one is even talking about that project. "We need to build that now, before any more homes are built. When are we going to learn our lesson?"

Some smaller projects are being finished. Several new connector roads have been developed in Kapolei, and this week the city opened a new $5.5 million intersection linking Kapolei Parkway and Kolowaka Drive with Renton Road near the old 'Ewa sugar mill. The city is also studying the idea of paving a small stretch of an 'Ewa dirt road known as Park Row Way, allowing residents another way to reach Kapolei Parkway without using Fort Weaver Road.

"These are small things, but every little bit helps," Kaku said. "Perception is everything. Everyone likes to feel like they are moving, and if you have that sensation, the drive just feels shorter. The whole philosophy is to offer a lot of alternatives, different ways to get where you are going."

WANTED: BIG SOLUTIONS

The growth in the area threatens to overwhelm the fixes being made now. Ocean Pointe is expected to add more than 10,000 residents between 2000 and 2030, the University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu project is expected to include 4,000 homes, and Schuler Homes recently announced plans to build more than 12,000 new homes on the last large undeveloped parcel of land along Fort Weaver Road.

Berg, who also serves on the 'Ewa Beach Neighborhood Board, maintains that the increasing problems demand big-thinking solutions. Among them: building a ferry terminal in the Ocean Point marina expected to be completed by the end of this decade; running a rail line all the way to 'Ewa Beach; and building a new underwater highway from 'Ewa Beach to Honolulu, a project that is championed by Cabanilla.

State officials last year refused to release $200,000 in state funds authorized for a feasibility study of a proposed tunnel from 'Ewa to Pearl Harbor, saying the military opposes it and the costs would be prohibitively expensive.

Said Berg: "Isn't that what a feasibility study is for?"