The first stretch of Oahu’s Skyline rail system is here, but it will take time and a full-court press by city officials before it really becomes an essential fixture on the Honolulu skyline as it exists today.
The debut of the first 10 miles, from Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, and rail’s first week of operation, were greeted with enthusiasm from many riders. The builders are still contending with costly hurdles that have ensnared the project — a contractor lawsuit over the next phase and land acquisition challenges through Kalihi are the latest.
But after a decade of delays and problems, once a piece of the 19-mile system finally opened, people were naturally itching to try it.
The tally of 70,000-plus people, who rode for free during the five-day promotion over the July 4 holiday, dropped off when regular fare service began, as everyone knew that it would. The encouraging thing about the July 5-9 report was that the daily count, ranging from 3,200 to 4,300 passengers, included about half who used both the rail and bus lines to reach their destination.
That’s a modest start, but it speaks precisely to what the city needs: a multimodal approach. Going even further, the city should encourage Biki bike rentals or other services for short hops to set up at rail stations.
The emphasis now should be on making the bus-rail connection as easy as possible, largely through public education.
The city Department of Transportation Services, the agency that oversees both bus and rail systems, has made numerous changes in bus routes to make transitions more efficient.
Still, said DTS Deputy Director Jon Nouchi in an interview about the adjustments, change can be hard. For this very reason, getting Honolulu on board with the new train era is going to require aggressive outreach to the community to help with all the component parts.
Making it easy to get their HOLO fare card, and picking the right fare plan for them. Figuring out how their bus route may have changed to connect up with Skyline — and a faster time to their destination. Optimizing the signage at the stations to make things clearer at the entry point to a new, unfamiliar system.
The city has pursued improvements to apps such as Google Maps that now show Skyline-bus links in route planning. There are online how-to videos and other guidance at its rail operations website (see 808ne.ws/dtskyline). There are also new timetables and bus-to-rail information (TheBus.org).
It’s a start. However, getting to the finish line — successful adoption of the new system — will take more vigorous outreach by the city and personal connections. For example, kupuna could learn to navigate rail more simply through senior fairs and other events.
Students and parents are another constituency, getting to after-class and weekend activities. School-based informational presentations would prove helpful, too. Each City Council district, led by the elected councilmember, should offer such events; similarly, area legislators should be helping to spread the word.
DTS has rightly altered various bus routes to incorporate rail. Bus Route 1, for example, now links to the Halawa station. Nouchi acknowledges the learning curve, for the city as well as the commuters.
“Most bus services take a year or two to mature,” he added.
That applies to various route alterations the city has made, but Nouchi was talking about PH-8, a new route that connects the Halawa station where the system currently ends with key employment centers at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
In particular, the city is working with the military to encourage ridership among the thousands of civilian workers employed at the naval shipyard. And work is expected to begin next year on a Pearl Harbor dry-dock expansion, which will mean transport is needed for some 1,000 construction workers and roughly twice that number in long-term positions.
Nouchi said military officials have told him there is no parking on base sufficient for such numbers, so use of the rail and bus systems will be essential. It will be a key commuter group that the city should bring into the Skyline fold.
Critics of the system have been quick to point out what they say is poor return on investment. Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a nonprofit policy institute advocating small-government principles, last week issued an assessment of the system. At its calculated $54 per passenger, it ranked the Honolulu rail as having the highest operating cost in the country.
Nobody would dispute the distressing rise in costs along the construction timeline, still ongoing, and that the 10-mile initial segment by itself has a limited function.
But the fact is that Skyline is now part of a linked rail-bus public transportation system, and evaluations of that system should take the combined ridership into account. There have been significant steps taken in the right direction
Making the most of that integration remains a goal some distance away, but the city — its leaders, along with the public and private partners — can be doing much more now to attain it.
