Honolulu public transit train debuts

Local island leaders and rail advocates got a tour Monday of Honolulu’s first public transit train — a transportation option that they’re betting thousands of Oahu commuters will eventually use to avoid daily gridlock heading in and out of town.

During a private event, the first driverless train for any major urban transit system in the U.S. slowly rolled out of a giant new rail operations bay overlooking Pearl Harbor and greeted the attendees with “ALOHA” and “E KOMO MAI” written on the cars’ electronic signs. Officials held a traditional Hawaiian blessing ceremony, and the train’s doors then opened to City Council members, state legislators, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and some 150 transportation officials.

“This rail project has been more like a roller coaster,” West Oahu community member and ardent rail supporter Maeda Timson said at the ceremony. “But now we’re going to be able to see, feel and touch the train. We are excited — next step is to actually ride the train.”

The four-car train, designed and built by Ansaldo Honolulu JV, has 188 total seats and will fit 650 passengers comfortably or “squeeze” up to 800 people, officials say. It features the nation’s first “open gangway” design, which will allow passengers to move across all four cars in search of open seats, as well as security cameras and racks for bicycles, luggage, surfboards and other items.

Officials from Ansaldo and the president and CEO of its new parent company, Hitachi Ltd., attended Monday’s event. It served as the latest chance for Caldwell and other rail leaders to tout progress on the transit project, even as they brace for potentially significant obstacles ahead in completing the full 20-mile system and face eroding public confidence.

“This has been a long, difficult journey. It’s like climbing (Mount) Everest, and we’re not there yet … and it’s going to be fraught with problems and difficulty,” Caldwell said Monday moments after stepping to the lectern. “But it’s something we’re not going to run from.”

Caldwell, Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director Dan Grabauskas and other rail leaders are holding their breath that the five-year rail tax extension passed earlier this year will generate enough revenue to complete the project. The project has already gone over budget once and faces more cost increases amid a hot construction market and problems with utility line clearances along the elevated guideway.

Already, some island leaders such as City Council Chairman Ernie Martin and even HART board members have suggested they consider stopping the line at Middle Street instead of Ala Moana Center if the funding’s not there.

Caldwell took aim at the idea prior to the train’s unveiling Monday.

“People are now saying, ‘Let’s quit. It’s too difficult. Let’s stop at Middle Street. Let’s stop at Aloha Stadium.’ It would be easy to say that, but our ridership would drop (and) our subsidy would grow,” Caldwell said, referring to the taxpayer dollars that rail will require on top of fare revenues to support operations. “We continue to need to stay the course.”

Both Caldwell and former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, under whom Caldwell served as the city’s managing director, have suggested reforming the state’s 10 percent administrative skim of the rail general excise tax surcharge to direct more money directly to the project if necessary.

Hannemann, who played a forceful role in launching the rail project, also attended Monday’s ceremony. He said it’s key for the city to start operating rail on an interim basis as soon as possible — even if that’s just to Aloha Stadium — so that local residents might get used to it and eventually embrace rail as a transit option.

“I’ve seen that in projects on the mainland,” Hannemann said Monday. “A lot of angst, a lot of opposition — but once people start riding it, then that positive momentum builds.”

The system is slated to have 20 such four-car trains once the entire system starts running, which rail officials now say is likely to be in 2022. Ansaldo will need about two years to test the train, and residents could start seeing the train run along the guideway west of rail operations bay in 2017 as part of those tests, Enrico Fontana, the firm’s project manager, said Monday.