Motorists stuck for hours Monday in a massive traffic backlog on the H-1 Freeway were literally waiting for the paint to dry.

State transportation officials yesterday said work crews finished replacing 60 damaged barriers of the Zipper Lane by 2 p.m. and completed painting 12 miles of guideline by 2:30 p.m., but then had to wait two to three hours to allow the paint to dry.

That would explain observations by exasperated Leeward-bound motorists that no one was seen working during rush hour on the Zipper Lane, which was left in its deployed position and took away two of the six westbound lanes.

For many, the drive home from Downtown to Mililani took three hours on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.

Although similar maintenance jobs had been performed on Monday holidays six times in the past three years without major problems, one bad day was enough for state officials to seek changes.

"We have to figure out how to do it differently without inconveniencing folks," Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa said yesterday. "It's under review to see what can be done differently. Because there are limited days to do this kind of work, maybe we're trying to do too much in one sitting. We might have to spread out work over several days. One possibility may be to start slightly earlier on a Sunday."

No matter what strategy is used, Ishikawa noted, "the work is going to affect somebody."

According to the maintenance schedule used Monday, deployment of the Zipper Lane — which runs from the Ke'ehi interchange to the H-1/H-2 merge — started at 12:30 a.m. and was completed at 5:30 a.m.

Crews began the grinding of 6,600 feet of guideline from the Waimalu viaduct at 7 a.m. and followed up with painting.

According to Ishikawa, Safety Systems Hawaii used the usual four people and two trucks to deploy the Zipper Lane. In addition, four more people, a longbed tractor-trailer carrying 20 1-ton zip barrier sections, and a 24-foot boom truck were used to replace the damaged barriers.

Harry Asato Painting Inc. used three crews of two painters each, three sets of grinders and rolling-paint applicators to repaint the guideline.

Ishikawa noted that by 7 p.m. Monday, when the paint had dried, it didn't make sense to close the Zipper Lane since it would take five hours to do that, only to have to deploy it again at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. "The damage was done by then," he said of the traffic jam.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.