Skyline is as good a name as anything else for Honolulu’s rail line. It’s OK, but not great.
No one jumped up shouting, “That’s just perfect!” when Mayor Rick Blangiardi presided over the christening of the $10 billion system early this month, dubbing the train Skyline.
But neither was there immediate condemnation. So all we have now is some of the rail line.
If you want to shorten the train’s name a bit, change it to SNP. In this exercise, SNP stands for Still Not Pau, a perfect status update for Honolulu’s adventure into mass transit.
When someone asks what’s going on with Honolulu’s train, all you have to say is “SNP”: still not pau.
The public relations department can pretend that “not pau” means the route still is growing and going for an even better full potential to reach more deserving communities. Those in the more realistic camp know that the city has not built much of the train route.
The rail was built starting on the West side of Oahu, then filling in portions from the East side, with the endpoint still somewhat undetermined.
The planning was always for an end at Ala Moana, until the money ran out.
It was supposed to run 20 miles with 21 stations and be completed in 2031. But like I said, it isn’t pau yet. It is now planned as eventually going 18.9 miles with 19 stations, terminating in Kakaako with Ala Moana viewed as an extension.
Blangiardi said at a press conference that the “Skyline name gives a new start for a system already more than 2 1/2 years late and expected to cost more than $10 billion, up from an original estimate of $5.12 billion.”
The money part is the other thing about Skyline that isn’t pau. “The sky’s the limit” may also end up being the cost of Skyline.
The original scheme was for a special tax to pay for Skyline.
As mentioned in the Star-Advertiser, Oahu’s “rail tax” — the 0.5% surcharge added to the state general excise tax — was originally set to expire at the end of 2022 but was extended to 2030.
Today the last stop of the planned line is the Civic Center station at the intersection of Halekauwila and South streets. The city announced interim passenger operations would begin at 2 p.m. Friday, with a grand opening celebration at the Halawa rail station featuring dignitaries and entertainment.
Remember that neither the train nor the special rail tax are pau now.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
