Construction resumed during the late 1980s after a move by US Senator Daniel Inouye, who, in 1986, had the freeway exempted from most environmental laws[2] as a rider on a Department of Defense budget bill.

[7] H-3 has direct access to H-1, which continues south to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and west toward Pearl City, and an onramp from the Aloha Stadium parking lot.

[9] The freeway then runs on Windward Viaducts through Hālawa Valley for about six miles (9.7 km) until it reaches the Tetsuo Harano Tunnels through Koʻolau Range.

Once on the eastern end of the tunnel, the freeway follows a viaduct built along the side of Haʻikū Valley until the Kaneohe Interchange with Route 63 (Likelike Highway) which leads into the town of Kāneʻohe.

A corridor connecting the Honolulu area to Kāneʻohe was included in the plan and was designated as "Interstate H-3" by the Bureau of Public Roads (now the Federal Highway Administration) on August 29, 1960.

The Damon family hurried to create the Moanalua Gardens Foundation in 1970 to join the forces of all political and cultural groups who opposed the freeway's construction through their tract of land.

Among their primary fears are urbanization on the scale of Honolulu via the freeway, which has the potential to bring heavy traffic and growth into their traditionally quiet neighborhoods, as well as affecting the value of their homes in the relatively rural (until recently) communities.

It is often compared to various cinematic landscapes in Star Wars and other movies, and it does sometimes reduce travel time for cross-island commuters, which has allowed for increased real estate development and prices in windward Oʻahu.

The freeway was selected to allow for long queuing lanes leading up to testing stations at the Kaneohe and Halawa tunnel portals.