HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Decades after talks of a rail project began, city officials are preparing for this week’s opening of the second rail segment from Halawa to Middle Street.
On this episode of Spotlight Now, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation CEO and executive director Lori Kahikina discussed Skyline’s milestone.
Kahikina shared the engineering features that make her particularly proud of the project.
“The Middle Street station, one of the columns under it, supporting it, it’s in the canal over there,” she said. “It is the deepest shaft in the entire world. It’s 357 feet down.
“You would never expect that when you first start constructing the project, but our team did it,” she said. “They had to drill all the way down.”
The next portion to tackle is segment three, which will extend the line to Kakaako.
Kahikina said she is pushing for contractor Tudor Perini to complete the line to Ala Moana.
“What we’d like to ask the board approval for is just to give the authorization to Tudor,” said Kahikina. “We have enough funds for the design. We don’t have enough for the construction part, but just start working on that next step.”
Kahikina estimated that the construction of that final mile could cost $1.5 billion, and it’s not clear where the money would come from.
View Kahikina’s full interview:
Another challenge HART is facing is that it’s limited to planning construction from East Kapolei to Ala Moana.
According to City Council member Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, a bill under consideration could change this.
Bill 60, which Dos Santos-Tam introduced in August, would allow HART to begin planning extensions east to the University of Hawaii at Manoa and west to the Kamakana Alii Shopping Center.
“Rail has to get to UH Manoa,” said Dos Santos-Tam. “In order for us to plan, HART needs the authorization to actually do the planning.”
Dos Santos-Tam explained that due to HART’s planning limitations, it would not have access to other properties that may become available.
“That means if there’s a property that comes available between Ala Moana and UH along Kapiolani Boulevard or University Avenue, or if, say, DHHL out in Kapolei, because they have a bunch of property out there, says, hey, we want to do this development, but we want rail to integrate, HART can’t even have those conversations,” said Dos Santos-Tam.
He also emphasized that planning must start as soon as possible because preparations may take years.
“Now is the time,” he said. “If you go back to when this project first started, 2005 was when they authorized the GET for it.
“It wasn’t until 2010 that the EIS was even done. It took five years,” he said. “If we don’t start now, we’re not going to hit the deadline in 2031 when we get to Kakaako to continue it on to Ala Moana or beyond.”
View Dos Santos-Tam’s full interview:
Segment two of Skyline officially opens this week with free rides on TheBus and rail starting Oct.16.
Segment three of Skyline is under construction and is scheduled to open in 2031.
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