HONOLULU — Hawaii’s new Skyline light rail system, billed by manufacturer Hitachi as the first fully autonomous metro system in the U.S., will make its debut today. It will be the first new major rail transit system to debut in the United States since 1993.
The first train is slated to run at 11:30 a.m. local time (5:30 p.m. ET), launching with a 10.75-mile, nine-station segment of what will eventually be an 18.9-mile, 19-station system. Regular service will begin Saturday, July 1.
When complete, the system is projected to replace an estimated 40,000 trips by car per day.
The Hitachi-built fleet of 20 four-car trains have a capacity of 800 passengers, are fully ADA compliant, and have wi-fi, among other features. Along with manufacturing trainsets, Hitachi Rail designed subsystems such as fire detection and passenger gates, tested and performed commissioning of the system, and will be its contract operator. The almost entirely elevated system is operated from a single control room.
“We’re delighted to have delivered Honolulu’s largest ever infrastructure project, which will have a major impact reducing congestion and emissions on the island,” Alistair Dormer, Hitachi Ltd. executive vice president, energy and mobility, said in a press release. “Reducing car journeys by up to 40,000 a day, once the full system is complete, will make a huge difference to travel in Hawaii.”
The first portion will launch more than 2½ years after the initial opening date, with the entire system slated to cost more than $10 billion, about twice the original estimate [see “Honolulu rail system to be known as ‘Skyline,’” Trains News Wire, June 19, 2023].
The next phase of the project, adding 5.2 miles and four stations, is projected to open in summer 2025.
When they open the line as far as Ewa, I can see taking some cars off the highways.
Just by coincidence (or not) the end of the line in Ewa is just a half mile north of the Hawaii Historical Railroad and its narrow gauge tourist line.
Now if HART ran through the valley past Dole and Schofield up to Haleiwa, then I would say they have done something. When the DoD land lease for Schofield Barracks ends, that area around Wahiawa is going to blow up.
Agreed. As they say on the Toyota TV ads, “Let’s go places!” And perhaps Brightline could manage the operation profitably using past railroad RoWs from the old standard and narrow gauge days??? https://www.american-rails.com/hawaiian-railroads.html
The daily ridership for the MBTA is approx. 724500. That is a lot of vehicles not on the highway, although who now’s how many car trips that is. There must be a way they figure it out. 21639500 per year from the “T”s webpage
MBTA rapid transit lines 273K. The others are on buses ferries and commuter rail.
Hawaii expects to divert 40,000 car trips per day.
I won’t second-guess that number. All I ask is that TRAINS MAG come back in a year or two to tell us what the ridership is compared to projection. Maybe it will be 40,000 but maybe not.
Just as a comparison, that would be about 40% to 45% of Amtrak ridership nationwide, if my numbers are correct.
I’m not familiar with counts on the various Metro systems. Could be that other readers know these counts. How would this number compare to lines on established systems like BART, MBTA, CTA, NYCTA, WMATA, etc.
Me again. I just now looked it up on Wikipedia. BART caries 146,500. So the projection is 36% of BART.
Once again, I’ll refrain from comment. Only to say, let’s check in a year from now and see.
40K seems like a reasonable estimate (although puny compared to what ridership would likely be in Europe). Have not been to Honolulu but traffic in Maui and Kauai is pretty bad – have to imagine it’s worse in Honolulu.
Well, maybe. The population of City/ County Honolulu is over a million. The system when completed will reach to Pearl Harbor and the international airport. Ridership of 40k is possible. I just want to know if it actually happens. We’ll have to wait a few years until the system is completed to the airport.
Imagine Manhattan or San Francisco with palm trees and you have Honolulu.
The opening of the first phase of the Skyline was delayed until 2023, as Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) canceled the initial bids for the first nine stations, rebid the work as three packages of three stations each, and allowed more time for construction in the hope that increased competition on smaller contracts would drive down costs; initial bids ranged from $294.5 million to $320.8 million, far surpassing HART’s budget of $184 million.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Wonderful news for “the Crossroads of the Pacific”.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
As Carl Sagan would say, this one came after “billions and billions” were available.