EDITOR’S NOTE: The Honolulu Star-Advertiser is featuring each of the nine Skyline rail stations and surrounding communities stretching 11 miles from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium. The series started Sunday and continues through Thursday. Passengers will begin riding Skyline on Friday.

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The city’s Waiawa rail station near Pearl Highlands Center is largely thought of as the mass transit line’s arterial connection for Skyline riders from Central Oahu and the North Shore.

But a key feature of this artery — two sets of on- and offramps connecting the H-2 freeway and Kamehameha Highway directly with a 1,600-stall parking garage and bus depot attached to the station — has been indefinitely deferred, leaving a more disconnected station for use.

What had been the biggest park-and-ride facility in the city’s entire 19-station rail line was intended to give residents in places including Waipio, Mililani, Wahiawa and Haleiwa a convenient alternative to fighting traffic congestion on the H-1 freeway to and from town.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation initially expected to have the ramps and garage added in 2026, but high construction costs partly to do with soil stability led the city in 2022 to cancel the additions. The garage was to cost $330 million based on two construction bids, or $206,000 per stall.

HART contends that the Waiawa station, even without the garage, will still be highly used, due to expanded bus connections, over a longer term after an initial segment of Skyline service starts Friday.

Since 2010, HART has projected that the Waiawa station will be second- or third-most used in 2030, which was a prior expected date for full rail line operations that has since been pushed back to 2031.

A HART analysis made in 2021 with the garage estimated there would be 9,685 daily boardings on average at the Waiawa station, or third most after a station at Ala Moana Center (17,330 daily boardings) and a downtown Honolulu station (9,780 daily boardings) in 2030.

The Ala Moana station and one at Ward Village were cut from the project in 2022 due to funding constraints, trimming the line to 19 stations from 21.

City officials in 2022 said eliminating the Waiawa station garage won’t significantly affect rail ridership.

According to a 2022 HART report, systemwide daily boardings when all 19 stations are in use should drop only 1.7%, or by 1,500, due to the Waiawa station change, while daily boardings at Waiawa should decrease 11%, or by 1,070, to 8,615 from 9,685.

Even with this adjustment, Waiawa is still forecast to be the second most used station after the downtown station when the full line is operating.

HART said in the report that it expects about 60% of passengers using the Waiawa station to arrive via TheBus, in part due to revised and more frequent routes to and from Central Oahu and North Shore communities and greater use of bus park-and-ride lots in Royal Kunia and Mililani Mauka.

The agency also said that some rail riders from Central Oahu and North Shore communities are expected to drive and park at two other rail stations containing park-and-ride lots, one at the University of Hawaii West Oahu in East Kapolei and one in Halawa next to Aloha Stadium.

Waiawa station also has an area for riders to get dropped off by car.

City officials intend to study future parking and connection options for the Waiawa station, which was built at the Ewa edge of Pearl City on a site once known as the Banana Patch and isn’t well connected to the immediately surrounding community.

The closest existing critical mass of potential riders near the station are residents of the twin 47-story Century Park Plaza condominium towers just Ewa of Pearl Highlands, a 411,000-square-foot shopping center anchored by a Sam’s Club store and Regal Cinemas 12-plex. A Home Depot, Wal­mart and homes in Manana are also within walking distance of the station.

However, the Waiawa station lacks pedestrian-friendly access. Pedestrians will have to walk along Kamehameha Highway and use a crosswalk to get across the divided highway to or from the station.

At one time, HART planned to build a pedestrian bridge from the station over Kameha­meha Highway to Pearl Highlands. But that feature is no longer planned.

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In the coming decades, the city envisions the area around Waiawa station to become more developed with residential and commercial uses. Building on top of the parking garage was even part of the plan when the garage was still slated for construction.

“Over time, the Pearl Highlands station area could transition from a suburban commercial center to a thriving pedestrian-friendly district complete with a mixture of commercial, residential and community uses,” the city’s transit-oriented development plan for the area said.

This plan anticipates that 1,500 homes and 1.1 million square feet of retail, office and industrial business space can be developed within a half-mile of the station.

One such contemplated project is redevelopment of the state-owned Hale Laulima affordable-housing complex. Hale Laulima has just 36 rental homes spread among nine two-story buildings on 4 acres near the station. The Hawaii Public Housing Authority plans to add 700 homes on the site it owns.

A much bigger envisioned project is planned by Kameha­meha Schools, which intends to develop, with a partner, about 2,000 acres of former agricultural fields between Pearl City and Waipio into a community with 11,109 homes, five public schools and more than a half-million square feet of commercial space over nearly 50 years.

The trust envisions that its plan would concentrate 2,000 to 3,000 of the homes more densely near the makai end of the site, which is a little over a half-mile from the Waiawa station.

“We believe transit-focused communities serve as catalysts for creating vibrancy and resiliency,” Serge Krivatsy, senior director of commercial real estate planning and development for Kamehameha Schools, said in a statement.

Construction, however, is likely 10 to 15 years away for the Kamehameha Schools Waiawa project.

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• Click here to view previous rail coverage.

Waiawa (Milkfish water). Waiawa is an ahupua‘a known to have the largest watershed on the island of Oahu. Among the noted places were the fishponds of Kuhialoko, Kuhiawaho; the salt beds of Ninauele; the coconut grove of Hape; the kalo patches of Moka‘alika; the spring of Ka‘aimalu; and the ‘awa patch of Kalahikiola. A noted Wahi Pana of the area is Ha‘upu.