EDITOR’S NOTE: The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is featuring each of the nine Skyline rail stations and surrounding communities stretching 11 miles from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium starting today, and continuing through Thursday. Passengers will begin riding Skyline on Friday.

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Get ready to roll down the tracks for a look at the Oahu communities to be served, and transformed, by the city’s initial segment of rail scheduled to start Friday.

Over the next several days, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser will profile each of the nine Skyline rail stations and surrounding communities to be linked by an inaugural service stretching 11 miles from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium.

It’s a relatively quick 22-minute ride end to end. But this part of what represents the largest public works project in state history took incredibly long to deliver — a period spanning close to two decades, four mayors, seven Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation executive directors, and a big chunk of the projected $9.8 billion total cost for completing the 19-mile line with 19 stations by the city’s 2031 projected timetable.

Roger Morton, director of the city Department of Transportation Services, recently called the impending running of rail cars the beginning of a new era for transportation in Honolulu after immensely drawn-out work on the project that followed earlier failed attempts over several decades.

“This really fulfills a 50-year promise to the people of Oahu that we were going to put in a rail system,” he said at a June 9 ceremony.

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Producing the current rail line began to gain traction in late 2004 when Honolulu voters electing their next mayor chose Mufi Hannemann, whose campaign promises included a high priority to deliver a rail system serving the Ewa Plain.

State lawmakers in 2005 approved a general excise tax surcharge on Oahu to pay for some kind of high-capacity transit system, and a majority of Oahu residents in 2008 voted to proceed with building an elevated rail line then estimated to cost $4.3 billion.

Many debates and decisions among city government leaders took place over a specific route alignment between East Kapolei and Ala Moana Center, and where an initial phase should be.

One early plan from 2008 was to have initial service run between just two stations, in West Loch and Waipahu, starting in 2013 and then followed by extensions in each direction to East Kapolei and Pearl Highlands a year later.

Some argued that an initial phase should be in urban Honolulu to relieve traffic congestion there, though others pointed out that a very large operations hub would need to be part of the first segment and could not reasonably be located in the urban core. (The hub was established on 43 acres near Leeward Community College.)

According to the project’s 2010 environmental impact statement, an initial phase was to be a three-station section in West Loch, Waipahu and LCC where trains would run only during midday hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Another five phases were to extend service to East Kapolei, then to Pearl Highlands, followed by Aloha Stadium, Middle Street and Ala Moana.

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Instead, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held in 2011 by then-Mayor Peter Carlisle in a barren former sugar cane field at the western end of the planned line far from any homes or businesses.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Makakilo resident Kioni Dudley said at the event, criticizing the route plan but not opposing the project.

“Where is our train going? It’s going to a gymnasium out in the middle of fields,” Dudley added, referring to what at the time was the under-construction Salvation Army Kroc Center.

Since then, much more than the Kroc Center has been developed around the western end of the rail line, including the University of Hawaii at West Oahu and about 2,500 homes at Ho‘opili.

Such community development has outpaced rail’s overly optimistic, or unrealistic, construction schedule and myriad delays caused by legal challenges, logistics, manufacturing errors, guideway construction defects and other factors.

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The actual start of rail construction didn’t happen until 2012, or 14 months after the groundbreaking ceremony, because city officials needed to await approval from the federal government, which is contributing $1.55 billion to the project.

City officials aimed to begin interim service between East Kapolei and Aloha Stadium in 2017, followed by a full line with 21 stations ending at Oahu’s largest shopping mall, Ala Moana Center, in 2019. But problems derailed this timetable along with subsequent opening goals.

One early, roughly year-long pause began in late 2012 after the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that an archaeological survey for the entire rail route had to be completed before construction on a first phase was permissible.

More recently, trial train runs in 2021 produced evidence that wheels were too thin for track crossover links and contributed to further delay of what had been an expected late 2019 service start that also was set back by impacts from COVID-19 and hairline cracks in some guideway supports that needed fixing.

In part due to delays, ballooning costs led city officials facing funding constraints to trim the planned full line in 2022 by 2 miles, two stations and $2.6 billion. Now the system will end next to a condominium tower in Kakaako, one station beyond a stop in Downtown Honolulu. The last two envisioned stations at Ward Village and Ala Moana Center are now described as part of a “future segment.”

Today, 12 years after the ceremonial groundbreaking, Dudley’s criticism about rail initially not serving very many people may still hold true, though to a lesser degree because of community growth around the three westernmost stations in recent years.

More dense community development in this area is still far off, while Aloha Stadium at the other end of the initial operating segment is closed, and it is not likely to be replaced with a new facility until 2028 at the earliest as an anchor-piece to a new mixed-use community with housing, retail and more on the stadium site.

Proponents of rail say bigger benefits will be to future generations with service expansions and dense transit-oriented development near stations.

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In the meantime, rail’s initial phase connects the well-established communities of Waipahu, Pearl City and Aiea along with Oahu’s second-largest shopping center and two public colleges.

City officials expect most riders during the initial phase of service will use TheBus to go beyond the terminal ends of the 11-mile rail segment, with many riders also using buses to get to and from stations where they board a train.

Many bus routes have been reconfigured to run to and from most of the nine initial rail stations.

Also, new express routes with buses every 10 minutes at peak and midday service periods were created to match train service and run beyond each end of the initial segment. One such route connects to Kapolei and its bus transit center from the two westernmost stations — Kualaka‘i in East Kapolei and Keone‘ae at UH West Oahu. The other route runs into Downtown Honolulu from the Kalauao station near Pearlridge Center and the Halawa station next to Aloha Stadium.

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City officials also say it will be convenient to make bus connections from rail to other places including Waikiki and UH Manoa.

All but two stations — Honouliuli at Ho‘opili and Halaulani at LCC — will have bus stops.

Three stations — Keone‘ae at UH West Oahu, Ho‘ae‘ae at West Loch and Halawa feature multibay bus hubs. A well-established bus hub also exists near the Pouhala station in Waipahu.

Seven of the nine stations also have TheHandi-Van and ride-share vehicle drop-off areas.

Five stations have automobile park-and-ride lots with a total of 1,275 spaces, including three that range from 304 to 590 stalls and two lots with about 20 stalls each.

Travis Ota, a city Department of Transportation Services spokesperson, said the initial segment of service is expected to draw 8,000 to 10,000 daily riders after a full year of operation.

HART has made ridership projections only for when the full 19-station system is running between East Kapolei and Kakaako. This estimate is about 84,000 daily boardings on weekdays, which is down from about 101,000 before the last two stations were deferred and factors in enhanced bus service.

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RELATED

• Skyline: Honolulu’s new rail line begins in East Kapolei

• Skyline: Interactive timeline of Honolulu’s rail system

• Skyline: How to ride Honolulu’s rail system for the first time

• PHOTOS: Take a look back at Honolulu’s rail construction

• PHOTOS: Honolulu Skyline’s first 9 rail stations ready to roll

• Click here to view previous rail coverage.

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