The new segment of the Honolulu rail system opened Thursday morning, adding four new stops, including at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and Joint-Base Pearl Harbor Hickam.
State and city officials got to take a ride on the second segment of Skyline after the opening ceremony on Wednesday.
They cheered as Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation CEO Lori Kahikina boarded the train, chanting “Lori! Lori!” HART is the agency tasked with orchestrating construction.
During the opening ceremony, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi laid out his bold goal for the city’s rail system.
“Much has been said over the last couple of days about it being a game changer. That's because it is,” he said.
“I put a stake in the ground and I set a minimum of 25,000 riders a day over the course of the next year. And that's no small challenge, but I'm confident we can get there and we will get there.”
Currently, only about 3,300 people ride Skyline each day. The first segment from Kapolei to Aloha Stadium opened in 2023.
Officials like HART CEO Kahikina said this new phase will shift people’s opinions of the rail project.
“We are starting to change the public perception,” she said. “At least once a week … someone from the public is coming up to me. I don't know who they are, but [they say,] ‘Thank you, Lori, for what you and your team are doing.’”
The project has been controversial since voters approved it in 2008. The estimated cost to build Skyline to Honolulu City Center has doubled to more than $10 billion — and it will now end two stops short of the original plan.
Construction has started on the third and most difficult segment. It requires relocation of utility lines in Iwilei and will close lanes on Nimitz Highway for the next five years.
Even so, former Mayor Kirk Caldwell said he was confident that as Skyline ridership grows, controversy surrounding it will decrease.
“For all of us who have traveled on rail, whether it be in New York City or Paris or Tokyo, there was a lot of controversy around all those systems, but for us today, it's just — wow, look at how convenient it is. That will happen here, too," Caldwell said.
Blangiardi acknowledged the task before him to get more people on board, literally and figuratively.
“It's a very emotional thing because I know that this has been against the odds and uphill since we started,” he said.
“I'm excited about seeing it really start to get widely used. That's why we're going to really work to drive ridership, in addition to focusing on what we have on the operations and ongoing construction. But now, now we need to sell this to the public, and I know that.”
Meanwhile, the Honolulu City Council is considering a measure that will clarify HART’s ability to plan future extensions to Skyline.
Councilmember Radiant Cordero’s district has the most planned Skyline stops. However, she’s heard from constituents that they want it to continue past City Center to Ala Moana and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She introduced the measure with Councilmember Tyler Dos Santos-Tam.
“Even though we want people to work in our communities as well, we have a lot of people who are still working near, nearer to the city’s center as well as Mōʻiliʻili and in Waikīkī,” Cordero said.
“I'm really looking forward to connecting more of our communities and that's really the goal. Rail should never end, construction for rail should never end because we need to keep connecting communities.”
To celebrate the opening of the new Skyline segment, passengers can ride all city transit for free this weekend with a HOLO card. With the latest segment open, the new hours of operation are from 4 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily.
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