FINALLY, HONOLULU SKYLINE READY TO ROLL

Before Skyline, a few noteworthy news items:

• Paris is burning again.  Now, more than ever, I'll never go back to this city

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  The conservative Supreme Court acted again, twice, one on LGBTQ+ rights and a second disallowing President Joe Biden's decision to forgive student loans.  Repercussions?  Further damages Republican chances in the 2024 presidential election.  SCOTUS might have saved American taxpayers $400 billion.  I think we are giving away too much to others not me, so the second one is fine with me.  I'll wait a few days to see if they do any more damage (to Republicans) on women and gun rights.  These might wait until their next session because they will soon (by early July) go into recess until the first Monday in October.

This is a big day for Honolulu.  It has taken half a century, through eight mayors and seven governors, for mass transit to become a reality. Everyone has some kind of gripe about this system.  I've always thought this city needed a rail system of some type, but I still have two beefs:

• Skyline , the name, seems out of place in the middle of the Pacific.
• The Star Advertiser mentioned that Dale Takanishi of Palolo thought the name should be The Rail.
• If anything like that, it should be Da Rail.
• So should have been TheBus.  Change that to DaBus, and Skyline to DaRail.  As they link to each other, there should be some brand similarity.
• My second gripe has to do with the station names.  Tourists (and many locals) will not be able to pronounce many of them:  Hōae'ae (West Loch), Niuhelewai (Honolulu Community College Kapalama) and Ka'ākaukukui (Civic Center), among them.  They're taking Hawaiian rights to seriously.

Skyline (now 10.8 miles long) features the Manu o Kū, or White Tern.

Holo is the name of the card to enter.  Probably so called because holo holo is the Hawaiian term for going out and having fun, or more accurately, to go for a walk, stroll or sail...but not rail because it had not yet been invented.

Skyline officially began operating from today, and the public can get free rides from 2-6PM for no charge.  Just walk on.  However, beginning tomorrow you need to use a Holo card, which you can buy in many convenient stores and all stations.  Well, I hear they are sold out at some locations.  This gratis service will be from July 1 to 4, 5AM to 7PM on weekdays and 8AM to 7PM on weekends.  Third gripe.  Why close so early?  

Riders will be charged $3 for the first ride, and up to $7.50 maximum per day.  I'm not sure how my senior Holo card will work, for I only pay $35/year for The Bus, and it has no actual value.  Someday I'll learn the details, but we will be charged much less that non-seniors under any condition.  For those fearful of kiosk machines:

To purchase a HOLO Card:

1. At the kiosk, press the gray button labeled “1″ to get started.
   1. As a word of caution, the kiosk screen is not touchscreen.
2. To purchase a new card, press the button labeled “new card.”
   1. The card without any funds costs $2.
3. To load the card, select either “stored value” or “day pass.”
   1. Stored value: allows passengers to load their new HOLO card with funds between $2.75 to $50.
   2. Day pass: will cost passengers $7.50 – the same price as a day pass for TheBus.
4. Then, complete the purchase by paying with either card or cash.
   1. If paying in cash, make sure to use exact change.

Incidentally, you will see engravings on the columns:

• The top row reflects the sky and heavens.
• The middle one of plants and animals.
• The bottom shows earth and the sea.

Fourth gripe, sure, this system is for the future, but it starts on the west end at a station that is too far away from anything.  Why didn't they just go a few more yards next to Ka Makana Ali'i, the shopping center in Kapolei?

Oh heck, fifth, the final official station at the other east end is also one future stop from a shopping center, Ala Moana.  Without that shopping center to shopping center connection, Skyline is destined to fail, or do so poorly, that it will be an embarrassment.

So for now, go back to the graphic above and note that only nine (10.8 miles, red color line) stations will open today, from Kualaka'i Station to Halawa Station, the one at Aloha Stadium.  

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  And, of course, that sports complex is permanently closed, and a replacement could come in 2028, but that would be dreaming.  I've lived here all my life, and 2030 is more probable, with 2033 likely.  Unless the state changes its mind again, kills that project, and decides to further upgrade the Manoa Campus facility, which last sat 9,300, but has been approved for 17,000 seats.  When?  Maybe on September 1 for the game against Stanford.  Hawaii's football schedule begins on August 26 in Nashville against Vanderbilt, with game #4 at Oregon on September 16, with Stanford and the Albany Great Danes (they have a football team?), at this facility...can't really call it a stadium.  See that tallest building at the base of the photo below?  That's where my campus office is located.  Great for tailgates.

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  Four more (orange) stations for an additional 5.3 miles could come in the summer of 2025.
• The final segment of 6 stations is targeted for some time in 2031.
• There is a hopeful 20th station, Kālia at the Ala Moana Shopping Center (AMSC), sometime in the future, if money is found.
• Then, of course, as a minor miracle, to the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus, two miles away.  
• Why not also Waikiki, 1.6 miles from AMSC.
• Then, as a major miracle, Hawaii Kai, but that's a dozen miles to AMSC.

Notice the FINALLY in the title above?  Here is why.

• Concept first advanced in 1966.
• Mayor Neal Blaisdell proposed in 1968 a 29-mile rail line from Hawaii Kai to Pearl City for completion by 1978.  53 years have since passed.
• A 22-mile rapid transit line was estimated to cost $700 million in 1972.
• Honolulu received a $2 million federal grant for a 14-mile fixed rail system from Kahala to Aloha Stadium in 1977.

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  The Honolulu Authority Rapid Transit (HART) project was a bus-rail system at a cost of $900 million, with 80% federal funding in 1979  The problem was that a highway, H3, was being built, and the odds were low that this city could get funding for both.  As it was, it took 37 years from beginning to completion in 1997 at a cost of $1.3 billion.
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  In 1981, Mayor Eileen Anderson scrapped HART for a lack of $1 billion.
• Mayor Frank Fasi in 1985 revived the effort with a $2 million federal grant.
• In 1990, Governor John Waihee called for a 0.5% general excise tax increase for the $1 billion HART project.
• The federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration in 1990 approved Honolulu's $1 billion transport system, with only one of 11 alternatives being rail.
• The Honolulu City Council endorsed a 17-rail line from Leeward Community College to University Avenue (Manoa Campus) also in 1990.  Cost was now estimated to be $1.425 billion, but $1.9 billion if some developer picked up 30% of the tab, and $2.2 million with no outside help.
• In 1991, Honolulu was awarded $618 million of federal funds for the rail project.
• In 1992, reports were that a 15.6 mile line from Waiawa to Manoa would cost $1.7 billion, for completion in 1997.  
• Also in 1992, federal participation increased by $90 million to $708 million.  This is was the best opportunity we ever had, and that point passed 23 years ago.
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  But we blew it because on 23 September 1992 a Honolulu City Council committee voted 5-4 to reject adding 0.5% to Oahu's 4% general excise tax to pay for this rail project.  The lady who screwed everything up was Councilwoman Rene Manson, who at the last moment shocked everyone by voting negative.  The same 5-4 vote on 30 September 1992 killed the project.  Honolulu would have been a far better, and richer, city if rail was approved.  Operation might well have been 25 years ago, and 20 for sure.  The time and dollar wasted were monumental.

The history of Skyline:

• We have something called light metro.
• Funding was approved in 2005.
• Construction was approved by a direct vote of Oahuans, 53%, on 22February2011.
• Debate over development was a major point of contention for mayoral elections in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
• A pain in the neck of city planners was Panos Prevedouros of the University of Hawaii.  He was one of the founders of Stop Rail Now.  We were colleagues in the same Civil Engineering Department, and I long ago actually worked with him on a proposal for mass transit on Kauai.  Read this link.  You will find this almost humorous, but visionary.

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  In 2010 I wrote a Huffington Post article entitled, The Sustainable Expo for 2020.  This was a failed attempt at suggesting that the best future for Honolulu was everyone working together to build an internationally funded rail system for Honolulu to host a World Expo.  One of my grander ideas that also went nowhere.

So with all my griping and fussing, let me in closing say that I'm glad we made it this far.  Public support will grow for finding the funds to complete the project at least to the Ala Moana Shopping Center.  Then there will be pressure to continue on to the University of Hawaii and Waikiki, maybe separate links from Ala Moana.  By then it will be a dozen years from now.  Someday to Hawaii Kai.  So by 2050 Honolulu will be looking fine.  And if I'm alive, I'll be 110-years old.  Sure, the cost of living is high here, and the next study by the University of Hawaii Economic Research (UHERO) will show we pay 2.7 times more for housing than the national average.  But the weather, lifestyle, relative safety and other factors make it a joy to be here if you can afford it.  And Skyline will become indispensable.  Imagine living in Tokyo without their transit system, or Washington, D.C., or any metropolitan city.

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