page_title: Interstate H-201
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate H-201 / History
caption_attribution_description: English: H-201 signage on westbound H-201
context_page_description: Interstate H-201 is the only auxiliary Interstate Highway located in the U.S. state of Hawaii, serving the island of O‘ahu. The H-201 designation is also known as the Moanalua Freeway. The 4.1-mile-long loop route connects exits 13 and 19 on H-1, passing Fort Shafter, Tripler Army Medical Center, and Red Hill.
  Despite being designated an Interstate in 1989, until mid-2004 the route was an unsigned Interstate, signed only as Route 78. The section of the Moanalua Freeway between Route 99 and the western H-1 interchange remains designated as Route 78.
context_section_description: The length of H-201 was originally designated as Route 78.
  The Federal Highway Administration approved the addition of H-201 to the Interstate Highway System on November 1, 1989. The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) asked that the Moanalua Freeway be reclassified as an Interstate so that the interchange with H-1 at the eastern end could conform to federal highway standards. HDOT originally asked the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in June 1990 to approve the freeway as H-1A in an application to AASHTO's Special Committee on U.S. Route Numbering, the committee which approves Interstate Highway designations. HDOT resubmitted a request later that year to number it as H-101, and AASHTO approved it as H-201 on December 8, 1990. The highway was initially designated H-1A, but AASHTO policy does not generally allow alphabetic suffixes in Interstate numbers. The final designation, H-201, conforms to the general rule for three-digit Interstate loop routes that uses an even initial digit.
  Until 2004, the state Department of Transportation chose not to sign H-201 as such, instead retaining the designation Route 78. Reasons given included the following:
  inability to render the new route number in a legible manner (because it has four characters, longer than the one to three characters of any other Interstate, it is necessary to use the thinnest font to render the number, and the shield is wider than the standard Interstate shield)
  encouraging motorists to use the newer and better designed H-1
  avoiding confusion with Interstate H-2
  In July 2004, in conjunction with a major resurfacing of both sides of the freeway, it was decided to bring the signage in line with the official designation.
caption: Letters in H-201 shields require thinner text, such as on signage like this one.
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