The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is preparing to hand over the first segment of rail to city officials on June 9.
HART CEO Lori Kahikina has been overseeing preparations and safety certifications for the first 11 miles of the system that the city is calling "Skyline."
"It's kind of bittersweet, as I've been mentioning, it's kind of like when your child graduates from high school and you're going to send them off to college — it's exciting, but it's also a bit sad," she said.
Interim passenger operations are scheduled to begin June 30 between the Kualakaʻi Station in East Kapolei and the Hālawa Station near Aloha Stadium.
Meanwhile, HART is still working to bring the rail to its final stop in Kakaʻako. The next segment from Hālawa to Middle Street, which includes the airport station, is slated to open in 2025. The final segment from Middle Street to Kakaʻako is expected to open in 2030 or 2031, Kahikina added.
"Right now, we're doing a utility relocation in Dillingham and downtown. So it's a little bit uncomfortable for your listeners and for the businesses out there, but we're trying our best to make it as smooth as possible for them," she told HPR.
Rick Keene, the HART COO and deputy executive director, said the agency hopes to award a contract for the construction of the downtown guideway and stations within the next year or so.
"We're encouraging the bidders in the proposal process to come up with creative ideas on how to do things better and more efficiently, more cost effectively," Keene said.
Early Thursday morning, Kahikina opened the doors to the Pearlridge station to show how HART has fixed cracks in the columns, in a part of the structure they call the “hammerheads."
"All I need is the engineer of record to write me a letter this week that everything is done, the stations are safe for people to get on. That gets handed over to HDOT and DTS and FTA and then I sign one last letter certification that this thing is complete and ready to open," Kahikina said.
The rail project will welcome riders at the end of the month with free rides through the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Passengers must tap a HOLO card to ride for free. The trains are slated to run every 10 minutes on weekdays between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. and on weekends between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.
"The trains, they're air-conditioned, they're clean, they're beautiful. There's about 188 seats, but we can fit about 600 to 800 passengers and it equates to 10 city buses," Kahikina said.
This interview aired on The Conversation on June 1, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
