Skyline Rail, Now Serving Honolulu

The Honolulu Rail Transit Project, now named Skyline Rail, opened to the public on Friday, June 30, culminating a half century of planning and overcoming serious obstacles with delays and funding shortfalls in the final years.

Honolulu’s new rail service “seemed a near impossibility just 2-1/2 years ago when it was digging a deeper financial hole and federal transit officials had lost faith and were withholding millions of dollars in badly needed funding,” reports Dan Nakaso in a paywalled article for the Star Advertiser.

The opening is just the first phase of a $9.8 billion plan. Nakaso’s article focuses mostly on how the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and city leadership overcame funding obstacles to get this first leg of the project open, including adopting a new county hotel tax aimed at tourists, approved by the State Legislature, and reducing the scope of the project. A 2012 iteration of the plan called for the entire project to span 20 miles and include 21 stations, from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center. The current plan will build 19 stations and 18.75 miles of track, ending in Kakaako at the Civic Center Station, or Ka‘akaukukui.

The paywalled article, linked again below, also offers more guidance on the how to use the system, including info about parking (there is only limited parking available at three of the new stations). According to a separate article by Hawaii News Now, 9,000 people rode Skyline on its first day of service to the public.