Kula Sylva — a 52-year-old, heavy equipment operator from Nanakuli — flies in and out of Daniel K. Inouye International Airport every week for jobs on the neighbor islands — and was thrilled that he could step off his Hawaiian Airlines flight from Kona Thursday morning and ride the city’s new, extended Skyline rail line back to West Oahu, saving his daughters the two-hour round trip they would otherwise take to pick him up.
“I love it,” Sylva said on the first day of public ridership across the rail system’s second leg, which extends the line 5.2 miles and four stops closer to town — at the Makalapa/Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Airport, Lagoon Drive and Middle Street stations.
“It’s going to work for me,” Sylva said. “It’s really good.”
Several residents coincidentally booked outbound and inbound flights just as the airport station opened Thursday and were pleased they could save $27 a day to park at the airport and reduce both their gas consumption and time stuck in traffic.
Driving his own vehicle — a gas guzzling, 2023 Dodge Ram pickup that Sylva uses to haul work equipment — is impractical for Sylva to drive himself to catch flights because it gets just 8 miles per gallon and costs him $115 to fill up the tank, even when it’s still a quarter full.
“I need it for my work but I can’t use it for daily life,” Sylva said.
Throw in the price of airport parking and Sylva said driving his Dodge to get to and from the airport “would be just too expensive.”
Skyline trains Thursday morning were running fuller than they typically have been, with Leeward residents expected to ride rail to the major employment centers at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and the airport.
One of those passengers was Joann Haae, 51, who works near the airport and also lives in Nanakuli. “I’m trying to save money and save gas,” she said. “Being stuck in traffic on the West Side just kills me. It just takes one stalled car to back everybody up.”
Still, at a cost of more than $10 billion to complete the third and final rail segment to Kakaako, Haae calls Skyline “a money pit.”
“But it’s here and we might as well use it,” she said.
Heading to his job at Hawaii Pacific University downtown, 61-year-old Makakilo resident Stephen Allen was waiting for the A Line bus at the Lagoon Drive station.
“It’s good that they extended the system,” he said. “But I still have to take TheBus.”
Allen also noticed fuller Skyline trains on Thursday.
“I’d say probably double or triple,” he said.
Lawrence Deleon, a 28-year-old Salt Lake resident, was heading to the University of Hawaii to study computer science.
“Pretty cool,” Deleon said of Skyline’s eastward rail extension.
But he complained about the absence of seating at the Lagoon Drive Ahua Station while waiting for express bus service.
“There’s no seats for the station,” he said. “I feel like a lot of people would be using this spot, and there’s no seats here.”
UH business major Johnson Cao, 18, said he “just wanted to see the new options they have” for TheBus’ U Line.
“I guess the commutes are going to be faster,” Cao said.
DTS Director Roger Morton rode aboard a 7:45 a.m. train Thursday where passengers nearly filled all 200 seats.
“We’re very happy with the first day,” Morton said.
Paid ridership continues today, with free service on Saturday and Sunday, but passengers riding for free still need a HOLO card to enter any station.
Ridership figures for the first four days’ of service won’t be released before Monday, Morton said.
DTS officials expect a weekend spike in passengers who will want to ride for free, just as they saw when the first segment of rail line opened for service in June 2023 from West Oahu to the Halawa station, across from the abandoned and empty Aloha Stadium.
On Thursday, Morton said there “were a lot of new riders because this is better. We can get people where they want to go, faster.”
DTS spokesperson Travis Ota acknowledged that rail and bus passengers will have to adjust to the new stations and bus routes.
“Everything is new,” he said. “With new bus routes people have got to get used to them so this is just part of it. It’s a learning curve. But once you learn it, you’ll get it.”
Ed Ignacio, a 69-year, Pearl Harbor shipyard retiree from Waipahu, and his wife, Lori, disagree about the cost and effectiveness of rail, which Ignacio loves.
They have a trip planned to Las Vegas at the end of the month and Ignacio wanted to take a test ride Thursday to make sure he knows how they’ll catch their Hawaiian Airlines flight after getting off of Skyline.
It took Ignacio “five minutes to get to Terminal 1,” before declaring that he was then going to visit each of the other new stations, including the current end of the line at Middle Street in Kalihi.
Lori has agreed to take her first Skyline ride on Sunday to see for herself, Ignacio said.
“She talks about the rail, but she’s never ridden it,” he said. “You’ve got to at least try it. She disagrees with the cost, but you have to start somewhere. You cannot stop progress.”
Pat Buckley, 63, and his wife, Shelly Buckley, 61, live in Ewa Beach and are unapologetic rail supporters.
They were riding both the original and second legs of the system Thursday and planned to eat lunch at their favorite restaurant in Kalihi, within walking distance of the Middle Street station where parking can be difficult.
To rail critics who don’t have to struggle through daily traffic congestion, Shelly said, “They don’t understand our pain coming from the West Side.”
Source: The Garden Island
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