HONOLULU (KHON2) — The second phase of Honolulu’s Skyline rail system is set to open next week, taking riders from Aloha Stadium to the Kalihi Transit Center on Middle Street. It will add four additional stops to the Skyline route, including Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
“This is 5.2 miles additional, but it gets us through the next four stops all the way to Middle Street. The real key to this is the two employment centers of Pearl Harbor and the airport. And, for that matter, people just going back and forth to the airport,” said Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
Skyline has, as expected, struggled with ridership, with segment one being referred to by some as a “train to nowhere.” Blangiardi thinks the addition of these destinations will have a massive impact on the number of people riding.
“We’ve been averaging about 3,500 visitors a day. Our goal is to build it to 25,000 a day on this segment, ultimately, when we get to South Street Halekauwila. In five years from now, we think it’ll be about 85,000 a day,” Blangiardi said. “So this is a whole new era.”
He goes as far as to say that this is the real opening of the project, with a contractual agreement dictating the opening of the first phase that goes from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium.
“We knew it really didn’t help, but Aloha Stadium becoming what it became,” Blangiardi said. “But even there, though the multimodal source, which has always been a key component of this, really comes into play now, we will have Express buses at Lagoon Drive one every 10 minutes, just like when the train arrives, it will take you to University, one stop Downtown, two stops in Waikiki, from 54 stops to 14. So we can really push a lot of people further east than just the two employment centers. But the combination of all this, once we really now start to educate and expose the public to it, is unprecedented.”
The city recently launched an advertising campaign praising Skyline’s reliability with the catch phrase “Skyline, always on time.”
“One of the real benefits of this is being able to get home when you want to get home at night,” Blangiardi said. “Most people going home are tired at the end of the day, and that commute gets even tougher than it does, certainly in the morning. But now the predictability of being able to come home, be on time for dinner and be on time. Maybe be at your kids’ practice, all kinds of stuff like that. So there’s just so many different benefits to this that I think people, once they start to do it, it’s designed to add to the quality of life. It’s not about necessarily making a profit off of this. It was never designed to be that way. Obviously, the more riders, the better. But this is what people get for their tax dollars. Talk about quality of life.”
The mayor also thinks that the city can avoid ballooning costs as the Honolulu Rapid Transit Authority broke ground on the next phase of the Skyline rail project in August. Phase 3 of the $1.4 billion project will add six new stations and about three miles of elevated guideway from Middle Street to Civic Center.
“We’re under control of the cost of construction. That’s the recovery plan we sold to the FTA. Right now, everything is on schedule.” Blangiardi said.
Skyline officially opens to the public on Oct. 16. Rides will be free that weekend. The full extension is expected to be open by 2030.