The Honolulu City Council has signed off on the financial recovery plan for the city’s long-delayed rail project, a blueprint for a truncated transit line that the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation has now sent to Washington, D.C., for review.

Council members had no real choice other than to approve it, considering the skyrocketing costs that have shot past available tax revenue. Now, assuming the Federal Transit Administration also accepts the recovery plan, and releases the remaining $744 million in federal subsidy, HART must be laser-focused on getting the project built and riders aboard the trains.

There are two key disappointments, of course. At the top of the list for most of Oahu’s potential riders is that the 20-mile planned guideway now would stop 1.25 miles short at what’s called the Civic Center Station, instead of at Ala Moana Center.

And the timeline for completion is frustratingly long: Even if there are no delays — and when has that happened with rail? — it won’t reach the South/Halekauwila street end until 2029. Completion, when “risk adjusted,” slides back to 2031, according to the recovery plan.

Perhaps even more important to the ultimate success of the project is that a workable Pearl Highlands transit center, with 1,600 parking spaces for Central Oahu and North Shore commuters hoping to ride the rail the rest of the way to their destination, has been postponed.

That will seriously diminish convenience and potential ridership. Strategies for accommodating the park-and-ride, at the planned location or an alternative site nearby, should be hammered out, as soon as possible.

However, both of those shortcomings — the lack of a parking facility and rail termination at a less-than-optimal point — should provide an opening to involve private entities that stand to benefit from rail in financing these last puzzle pieces.

That will take some persuasion. Clearly, the most promising course for winning over new partners would be by getting the first half of the system up and running, building excitement for extending it further. HART has set an end-of-year target for starting operations between where construction started in East Kapolei and the Aloha Stadium station.

Hitting that target — and experiencing some rail success — would be a smart move. And with construction of the planned replacement stadium a long way off, the city should be working with the state’s stadium redevelopment authorities on a near-term magnet. Encouraging marketplaces or other fun attractions to activate that Halawa area would make good tactical sense for rail planners as well as the state.

A further goal would be timely completion of the connection to the airport, which would be a boon to West and Central Oahu residents bound for off-island travel.

Final completion is almost a decade away — Dillingham Boulevard still the knottiest segment on the to-do list — but it’s not too soon to start planning the shuttle links to Waikiki and Ala Moana, where many people still want to go.

Civic Center could function well as a short-term end point; it even has some built-in advantages. A significant number of potential commuters living to the west work downtown, as well as at federal, state and city offices within walking distance.

Kakaako itself is a growing but still walkable residential hub, with retail and restaurant venues, all of which could be further boosted by rail. Agencies such as the Hawaii Community Development Authority should revisit plans with that in mind.

Despite changes proposed in this recovery plan, at $9.93 billion, the HART line would cost roughly twice than was projected at the 2011 groundbreaking. Even so, it still holds the potential to serve Oahu’s transit needs — if the city can meet the “make it work” moment that’s at hand.