How Honolulu’s Rail Overpromised, Overcharged, and Underdelivered

The construction of the elevated rail in West O‘ahu is now completed and available for riders. Photo courtesy of Musashi1600. 

The summer of 2023 marked a milestone for Honolulu. The first phase of its 20-mile light metro system known as the “Rail,” which connects West O‘ahu and urban Honolulu, was approved by the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART) for interim passenger operations. In many other cities, the approval of one section of a multisegment public transit system may not seem noteworthy. However, this was not the case in Honolulu. This segment of the rail was completed 11 years after the start of its construction, while the entire project has soared approximately $7 billion over its original $5 billion budget. Because of these significant costs, the first phase of the rail was not met with gratification. Rather, Honolulu residents are disappointed—the rail is the largest and most expensive public works project in the history of Hawai‘i, and it remains incomplete.

The rail originally garnered support and excitement in Honolulu thanks to the several benefits it promised. For example, Honolulu local lawmakers proposed the rail to ease traffic congestion, as it would carry commuters across a stretch of one of the most congested roadways in the country. The rail’s implementation was expected to save Honolulu commuters more than 50,000 hours of daily travel time, according to the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The rail would also have a station at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, O‘ahu’s main airport, on its way to and from urban Honolulu, allowing people to easily access the airport without a car. Additionally, the rail’s construction was expected to provide roughly 4,200 direct jobs each year, including railroad, construction, and engineering jobs. Furthermore, the rail initially attracted voters because of its potential to reduce Hawai‘i’s fossil fuel consumption. The rail was positioned to support the electrification of Hawai‘i’s transportation system and to help meet the state’s renewable energy goals of 100% renewable sources by 2045. All of these potential benefits made the rail appear to be worth the significant costs.

After nearly 20 years of debate, voters in Honolulu took action by approving the plans to build the rail system in 2008. Two years later, they voted to form HART––the autonomous board overseeing the planning and implementation of the rail project. That same year, the City and County of Honolulu signed an agreement with the Federal Transit Administration to build the project for $5.122 billion, a price tag which has now ballooned 136% to $12.45 billion.

The construction of the rail was anything but smooth. The rail faced various delays and court challenges throughout its construction. One major delay involved a lawsuit over the project’s failure to survey archaeological remains from Native Hawaiian burial sites along the rail’s proposed route, resulting in a halt in construction until this matter was resolved. Then, in 2020 after more delays and an increase in expected costs, HART conceded that they needed to shorten the rail’s proposed 20-mile route to 18.5 miles. These route changes included bypassing key population centers such as O‘ahu’s popular tourist destination, Ala Moana Shopping Center, and the state’s main public university, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. 

The costs associated with the rail are arguably the most jarring aspect of this project. The rail has cost over $12 billion and is being largely financed from the pockets of Honolulu residents through increases in general excise and transient accommodations taxes. Federal funding for the project had initially been a main selling point to voters. Yet, at critical junctures in the project, that federal funding was jeopardized due to uncertainty about the rail’s completion. For instance, mayoral candidates in 2012 publicly stated that they would terminate the project if elected to office. Additionally, there were repeated adjustments to the rail’s route that made the project seem precarious to federal administrators. By 2023, federal funds were projected to cover a mere 17% of construction, with Honolulu visitors and residents footing the bill for the majority of the project through a decades long excise tax increase, which was initiated in 2007 and is set to expire in 2030. However, the revenue produced by the excise tax increase is not keeping up with the mounting costs of the rail and current low levels of ridership, causing many to believe that the financial relief promised by the excise tax increase may never materialize.

It is not as if Honolulu’s elected officials were ignorant of the potential for significant cost overruns and delays. The infamous “H3” freeway construction—a 15-mile highway that cuts through mountains and connects the windward side of O‘ahu to Central O‘ahu where Pearl Harbor sits—was also delayed by decades after environmental and cultural issues were raised against the project. For instance, opposition to the H3 resulted from concerns about the project desecrating Native Hawaiian burial sites. For the rail, similar delays due to public support challenges and funding have unfolded, demonstrating that elected officials in Honolulu did not learn from previous infrastructure experiences.

Where does this leave the rail today? 12 years after construction began and with costs rising, residents’ patience has now dissipated. With only the first 10.75 miles of the rail available for riders, commuters are merely taken from West O‘ahu to Central O‘ahu, leaving them short of urban Honolulu. Despite the turmoil associated with the rail over the past decade, on the opening day of the rail’s first phase, 9,000 riders commuted. As the initial excitement has worn off, the rail now faces low levels of ridership. The average number of riders each day from June to December 2023 was 3,292, dipping slightly to 3,076 riders from January to March 2024. Because the rail has yet to take commuters into and out of urban Honolulu, some commuters who seek these destinations prefer to take the local bus. Meanwhile, other commuters are forced to ride on new bus routes that the local government implemented to accommodate for the rail’s shorter route.

The current expected completion date for the entirety of Honolulu’s rail is 2031, which will be 23 years since voters originally approved of the project, 19 years since construction began, and 11 years after the intended completion date. The rail continues to harm Hawai‘i in other key ways as well. An environmental consequence of the rail is its inability to aid in Hawai‘i’s renewable energy goals as much as it was projected. Because the rail’s construction was prolonged, and thus the move to decrease the reliance on fossil-fueled cars has been delayed, the energy used in 2023 was only 33% renewable. HART claimed that the rail would increase the amount of renewable energy used since it would take fossil-fueled cars off the road, but this idea has yet to bear fruition, especially since construction will continue for many more years. Another consequence of the rail is that, because of its prolonged construction, there is a consistent redirection of funds that harms the community. For example, while Honolulu could be building affordable housing for its increased homeless population or improving its public education system, taxpayers’ dollars are instead being invested in the completion of the rail. To put this in perspective, the entire budget for the state of Hawai‘i for the 2023-2024 fiscal year was only about $17 billion. By allocating extra money each year to the rail due to the unexpected increased costs, other departments are subsequently receiving less funding. Despite this frustration with the rail and many residents wishing the rail’s construction was halted earlier, the rail is currently at a point of no economic return, so it appears that its construction must continue until it is finished. It is unfortunate, however, that funding its construction comes at the expense of other issues that appear to be more pressing. 

Despite these numerous drawbacks to the rail’s construction, the project is not without its cheerleaders. There is good reason to continue aspiring to reduce Honolulu’s traffic congestion, over-reliance on internal-combustion-engine-powered vehicles, and costly imported fossil fuels. To ensure completion of the rail, it will be important to identify why cost overruns happened in order to prevent future escalation of costs, better prepare for environmental and cultural impacts, and recognize that public funding is inherently a political process. Thus, the process of building the largest public works project—both in size and cost—in the history of the state of Hawai‘i is a lesson for all cities that intend to build new transportation infrastructure.

Charla Teves (BC ’25) is a staff writer at CPR from Honolulu, Hawai‘i studying political science and anthropology. She is passionate about social justice and hopes to highlight new strategies to tackle current issues in her writing. She can be reached at ct3132@barnard.edu.