Thanks to Odoo for sponsoring this video! Visit www.odoo.com/r/TXH and get started today with a free 14-day trial from Odoo, No credit card required! What do you think? Is building the Skyline worth it? Thanks a lot for watching 💛
Please cover Riyadh metro, it's first metro in Saudi with six lines and costing 22.5 billion dollars. It will launch this month. Would love to see a video about it's delays, the project success or failure and the 7th line to Qiddiya that was announced.
The Little Andaman project is not a sustainable initiative compared to the second project located in Vizhinjam in Kerala. The Vizhinjam project is strategically positioned near an international trade route, making it a better choice for trade purposes. While the Little Andaman project raises significant environmental concerns, the Vizhinjam project does not face such issues. With the ongoing economic boom in India, the Vikas Bharat initiative appears more viable and economically promising. The Vizhinjam project, with its proximity to Thiruvananthapuram, promotes regional development and benefits nearby cities. This government-backed initiative strengthens the economy by facilitating mother ship connections, making it a key player in enhancing India's trade capabilities. Moreover, the Vizhinjam project is expected to transform the region into a shipping hub for India. The first phase of this project is set to be completed by 2024, with further developments planned to attract more investment into the region. Economically, it is a more viable and sustainable option compared to the time-consuming and resource-intensive Little Andaman project.
I worked on that rail, The general contractor was STG when I left, out of my 35 years of working in construction! STG was by far the worst company I’ve ever worked for!!! Poor planning poor communication lack of accountability!!!
The idea of pausing construction of the system before getting to the denser part of town where it's needed most would change this from super costly but worthwhile to simply a tragic waste of money.
Great video, love that you're giving this project the attention it deserves, being the first automated metro system in the US. However at 5:12, there seems to be a slight error, as the 2nd segment is actually the only one opening in 2025, while the 3rd segment is planned for 2031 and the 4th segment still has a date yet to be decided.
Silly that they didn't want to activate the Pearl Harbor and AIRPORT Stations sooner since it's track is done - those are Stations that people would use. Delaying it's opening for completion of 2 more stations is Stupid. The Dillingham Track fiasco with relocating all Street Utility lines shows Poor planning and awareness on Rail Officials. King Street/Downtown/Ala Moana track will be similar.
@@hillyseattlenarrowstreets6087 Pearl Harbour and the Airport station are just as important as the Lagoon Drive and Kalihi Transit Center stations, and the latter two are arguably even more important for commuters that actually use TheBus and Skyline right now, as they will be the stations to have express bus service into town.
Before the last mayor of Honolulu left office, he opted to not renew the ceo of HARTs contract. He worked on multiple well known transit projects. The former mayor then brought in his own friend as the replacement … her experience is trash management. Whole project stinks of corruption & red tape.
It's only a good call if it gets riders. The problem is it could be replaced with a bus line with how few riders it is getting, and they keep trimming stations off the end (which was all the important stops like the university of Hawaii and Ala Moana Shopping Center, which has the facilities and space to be the main bus hub of the city). Even if it goes to Civic center, Civic center doesn't have the space to be the main bus hub like Ala Moana is, and you've already lost the ten thousand potential bus riders from the university. No one would have gone elevated rail for this route back when it was $5.2 billion. Now that the cost has doubled and expected ridership is swirling the toilet the only thing keeping this project going is "it is too late to stop" and the Federal government is paying for the last piece since $600 million in federal funding is reserved for the final stage. But even that might be at risk given how far out of compliance the project has gone and the incoming Trump administration might be aggressive in cutting costs even if it gets the Federal and state government into a lawsuit.
@accordiongordon But they aren't building all of it. In fact they aren't even building the most important stops. This is like building a baseball diamond with only enough money to make the infield, and then counting on crowds to show up.
Welcome to 1980s technology. Vancouver has had a driverless LRT system since 1986 in the form of the SkyTrain. Probably the most successful LRT in all of North America
I live in Vancouver, and this looks a lot like our Skytrain system. Elevated rail, light rail, commuter system automated trains, its got everything our skytrain system has.
The cracks in the columns comes from what they did to them; they were designed and built properly but then after the fact they decided "Oh hey, let's take a few inches off to carve in a design along DBZ way." Which, as you could imagine caused structural problems.
I don't live in Hawaii, but it's definitely worth it. One thing I thought is illogical is why did they start building it from the boondocks to downtown and not the other way around? Why would anyone be surprised that ridership at this point is only 3,000 per day? Did they do this just because it's cheaper to build out in nowhere? They still need to build the rest. I can't imagine New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, etc., not building their subway systems from the center outward.
Excellent observation...they (the proponents of the rail) did it strategically to keep the costs down until they were at a point where the project couldn't be canceled. They under reported what the costs were gonna be and they knew when the construction got into the urban areas, the prices were gonna go thru the roof. If they had started logically from Ala Moana to the airport.... it would have been shut down years ago. They knew exactly what they were doing starting the project backwards.
There's no space to store and or service the trains if they build from town. The storage yard is out in Kapolei. So if they did build from Honolulu to Kapolei, the system wouldn't be running until it's finished. Just my observations.
Rail sucks I ran for office as anti rail because we need since the 1960s that it would not be sustainable or logical we mass transit for a place with less than 900k population and the linear limitations was always asinine by pure common sense. The 15 billion it will cost means that we could have given each family $40k to by their own cars the. .5 percent Get tax killing us too
VERY much need to extend this to Nanakuli via the Ko Olina Resorts!! The H1 is a nightmare to the west here! Also need to go East to the University area!!
They could easily build the rail at grade on the old sugar cane rail road tracks. It would save a ton if money. I don't know what they were thinking. The rail could've easily went all the way to nanakuli and the resorts out there also. There's so much space, it should also have a small extension that actually goes all the way to Kapolei.
Overall the Slyline still can be a good project, however having the first section opened be so close to but not even connecting to the airport, and having many of the completed stations located on highways requiring an additional bus ride to get to destinations riders would actually want to travel to really makes it seem like a "train to nowhere" which makes it look quite bad in the moment.
How can such a relatively simple civic project can cause such discord? Corruption, Incompetence, Ancient Tribal Burial Ground!? King Kamehameha is shaking his head…
We are a small island. Projects like this will cost 10x more than other places. Plus may be a lot of corruption and folks creating challenges for the project.
This can be compared to a fairly long nine-mile expansion of the light rail SAN DIEGO TROLLEY system that was recently completed in my hometown of San Diego, connecting Old Town with an extension that largely was built elevated for seven of the nine miles up through parts of La Jolla and through the sprawling campus of University of California San Diego in La Jolla…unlike the Hawaii Skyline, however, the process went smoothly here (as it was an extension of an extensive and well run transit system that had been extended several times in its forty year history and now stretches more than twenty five miles north from the US Mexico border up to the UCSD campus and 15 miles east into El Cajon)..It was finished three months EARLY as well as almost $100 million UNDER its $4 billion budget
My hope is that once it at least gets to the airport the ridership will increase a little and then continue to increase the further it gets into Honolulu. I know right now the terminus is planned as being Ala Moana Center (which is great, to be fair), but I hope they can get it into Waikiki, and then further on to UH Manoa and east to places like KCC and Kahala Mall and then maybe even as far as Hawaii Kai. On the west side, an eventual extension to Ko Olina would be awesome.
loved this video! I think you've done a great job explaining the rail issue on our island. I'm hoping somehow in the future we can get an extension to UH and further west, and that when the new stadium is built the rail will be prioritized instead of personal transport by car. I've taken the rail a fair amount of times already and I really like how safe and clean it feels, especially given the automated platform doors.
Ayo a video on Hawaii ?! Let's goooo ! Personally this thing doesn't come anywhere remotely near where I live so it serves next to zero purpose for me . I still think it's for the best in the long run (the way the project went about could've been VASTLY more thought out and better executed) . Once the rails get expanded and more places get a station for access is when I'll consider using it .
@@AL-lh2ht Oahu has a population of a little less than one million. That means that for ever single adult and child on Oahu they have a tax burden of over 11K just to build the Skyline. That ignores the fact that the Skyline will never generate a profit so it will need to be subsidized each year. Then there is the fact that this only serves a fairly small part of the population of the island as it goes along less than 20 miles of the island and will only have 19 stops. This isn't a fairly robust system like the Metro in NYC, Sound / King transit in Seattle or JR in Japan. All of those I have used and are excellent. I cannot see Skyline approaching anything even remotely as effective as those systems. Remember that 11B is for a shortened version that was approved by tax payers. That provides stations that lack basic amenities like toilets open to the public.
Where do you live? There's bus connections to almost any neighbourhood along its route and during commuter hours buses that come as frequently as the trains do.
@@Komainu959 And why does Skyline have to generate a profit in order for it to be useful? Freeways are 100% subsidised, yet we don't question them. It also does, in fact, serve a sizable amount of the population, and it is not a standalone system and never was intended to be. Oahu has a robust and expansive bus system that will get you from every neighbourhood along its alignment to the nearest station, and from my experience it is more than sufficient for general commuting needs. The "shortened" version in question is only two stops less, and while admittedly this cuts off service to the largest transit hub on the island, most commuters would likely only go as far as the central business district to begin with, and there is more than adequate bus service from there.
I've been following this since the very beginning (from afar) and still scratch my head as to why they didn't start from the city centre. Aloha Stadium to Ala Moana Center... instead, it became a vanity project. It has to be completed for everyone's interests, but good luck convincing Congress to fund future rail projects.
Mate, as soon as they started explanaing where construction began, within 30 seconds I thought to myself. "Well they started at the wrong end of the track" 🤦♂️ Something so glaringly obvious! How can that be overlooked? Start at the city, establish an instant clientele after stage one where the population is greatest, then use those profits to pour back into stage 2 and only build as the demand increases from the city towards the outskirts. This is how every city has been built since the beginning of time, they have done this entire project backwards 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🚝 No coincidence that the train itself doesn't distinguish from front or back, because it even looks like it could be driving backwards. Also it doesn't have a pilot in the actual train, when it appears that the entire project doesn't have a pilot. The train mimicks the project. Backwards. and driverless. Painful to watch. poor locals. ❤️🩹🚝🤦♂️👑
I get that the outer population wants to get into the city, but essentially they are trying to build a bridge 32km long. That is what I call a bridge too far. 🚟🌁🏝
They started far outside of the city's centre because it would've been too costly finding a place to put a railyard anywhere near Honolulu proper. The stations were built in "the middle of open fields" because those areas are currently under heavy development and it would be significantly easier to build the station first and have the rest of the communities built around it. Yes, there are many things that could've been done better, but as someone who uses it (in all of its limited fashion) regularly to commute now, I only hold support for this project and push for its completion, at all costs.
They (the proponents of the rail) did it strategically to keep the costs down until they were at a point where the project couldn't be canceled. They under reported what the costs were gonna be and they knew when the construction got into the urban areas, the prices were gonna go thru the roof. If they had started logically from Ala Moana to the airport.... it would have been shut down years ago. They knew exactly what they were doing starting the project backwards.
@@smizu1442 If they started in Ala Moana, we wouldn't HAVE any sort of system because there's literally no room to put a railyard anywhere near town. Their current baseyard next to LCC was practically gifted to them, and if not for that, the contingent baseyard would've been in Kapolei, exactly where they started building it.
Power to sustain MagLev Rail would exceed existing Power Grid. Majority of Oahu power is shipped in on fuel tankers, Solar can only supplement power needs.
@@hillyseattlenarrowstreets6087 The scamline is not exactly sipping electricity. “Once rail opens for service, HECO expects the city’s 20-mile, 21-station rail line to be among its 10-largest customers in terms of demand, according to Ching. HART expects the rail system will initially require nearly 15 megawatts of power to operate the entire line, according to figures provided by HECO.” civil beat 8/22/2019
With a big project like this, people just need to give it time to get build out. It's still under construction, and luckily, they seem to be on track to finish the other segments in the near future. Once the downtown and airport segments are finished, it'll be very useful. This is great news and I'd love to visit when it's finished. Keep in mind, the great metro systems around the world were not built in a day. I saw their are proposals to expand to the University and Waikiki and other areas which would be great to see in the future. There's a valid argument that it costs too much when other countries could build for less. Ultimately, it comes down to bureaucracy and poor management which was mentioned in the video. Metro systems in America need to start streamlining design and engineering in-house. A lot of that cost is paying other people to come in a do the work for way more, taking up valuable resources and time. If we had design, engineering teams for these metro systems, the cost for these projects wouldn't be so astronomical, and we could see regular expansions to our metro systems rather than once a decade. That being said, it is difficult to compete against free (go figure). By that, I mean, highways are subsidized by an insane margin that it's no wonder cities opt for building them instead of public transportation. Long term as cities are finding out, they can't keep up with the infrastructure cost of these huge highways that take up valuable space away from urban development. It's not sustainable how we build our infrastructure in the US. It needs to change. Deregulate!
2/19/2006: 28 miles Kapolei to Manoa, $2.5 billion 3/1/2007: 20 miles Kapolei to Ala Moana, $3.6 billion Full funding grant agreement with the FTA: 12/19/2012: Kapolei to Ala Moana, 20 miles, 21 stations, completed by 1/31/2020, $5.12 billion 11/9/2021: Kapolei to Ala Moana, 20 miles, 21 stations, $12.45 billion, completed in 2031 6/3/2022 “recovery” plan: 18.9 miles, 19 stations, $9.933 billion, updated to $10.065 billion
Firstly the line needs to be finished. It needs to have actual destinations people want to go to or else ridership will never be enough to pay for its running costs! Secondly pay for it via a tourist tax/overnight stay fee increase. Thirdly allow towers of unlimited height but with no car parking spaces to be built within 750 yards of all train stations. Within 10 years you have a great daily ridership of hotel guests, office workers and residents all using the rail line to get about. Very few people are going to use the line of you jave to get off the train and catch a bus the final 3 miles!
In the US you will be accused of corruption when building something even if it doesn't exist. Because lots of people love to be the villians of public transit.
The biggest challenge with certain locations of Oahu is everything of note is in Honolulu increasing ease of access to Honolulu from areas like Waikiki would easily make my life better
Hainan in China. Exists. 600km ring high speed rail on a tropical island with same conditions. Ironically often called as "Hawaii of China". Same elevated design. Same huricanes, mountains and complicated soil. Not mentioning, that it's connected to the mainland rail system with ferry. Yes. Trains are entering the ferry, crossing the sea, and reentering the rail system.
The ferry trains are not that uncommon. That's how Sicily is connected to mainland Italy. There also is a train between Stockholm and Berlin, that takes the ferry across the Baltic sea. There even used to be a ferry train on the lake Constance between Austria, Germany and Switzerland. But that's in the past.
The key ingredients are China's weak property rights, small chances to fight the government and overall much cheaper construction costs. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some corners may have been cut, since it's, sadly, still a common occurrence in China. Of course, the US is on the other end of the spectrum, together with the UK and Canada, for building extremely slow and extremely expensive, being basically a joke at this point. Any democratic country has better examples than China. There's France, Spain, Japan and Korea.
The key ingredients are China's weak property rights, small chances to fight the government and overall much cheaper construction costs. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some corners may have been cut, since it's, sadly, still a common occurrence in China. Of course, the US is on the other end of the spectrum, together with the UK and Canada, for building extremely slow and extremely expensive, being basically a joke at this point. Any democratic country has better examples than China. There's France, Spain, Japan and Korea.
@@martinbruhn5274 i was about to mention Sicily. Done that crossing many many times, i am looking forward to the bridge though, cause it normally takes over an hour between disconnecting the cars, fitting them piece by piece in the ferry and then putting them back together on the other side, and if you're doing this trip in the summer, the whole time you have no electricity and so no AC. The bridge would cut all that down to a few minutes, especially on HSR.
@@martinbruhn5274 They are. Train system of Europe are good too indeed. I added it to highlight infrastructure of railway system of tropical island of China, of almost same Latitude and weather conditions, compared to Hawaii.
It's a good future proof project but it needs to run 24/7/365 and have Transit Oriented Developments built at each station site for it to really get use like Vancouver or Hong Kong...
Hi MegaBuilds, you should consider doing a video about Singapore's Tuas Megaport. It is a massive construction project on reclaimed land and when fully complete will be the world's largest port.
A pretty good summary of the HART system but you left out the fact the system was to serve the University of Hawaii, Manoa but it was short-stopped at Ala Moana . UHM is the number one commuter destination , not downtown. Also you left out the fact that SIDA (State Independent Taxi Association) tied up the project in lawsuits to prevent the rail from serving the airport. And thereby cutting into their lucrative. Waikiki to HNL business. I was there when convicted felon and city counsel woman, Rene Mansho cast the killer vote to prevent funding the project 30 years ago. The vote was to impose a ½ of 1% tax increase for 10 years to fund the project . No doubt the project would have been already completed by now at considerable savings if not for her. The project does not terminate at Kapolei but in a deserted sugar cane field. What were they thinking? I suspect lack of service to Waikiki has something to do with those pesky taxi drivers.
The worst planning and filled with criticism in general, research and more research should have been done to prevent delays for more then 15 years and still not finished since 2009 and public input by tax payers should have voted or given a right of choice. The Public in general had no choice it was forced by government . People knows it 😊will be more then 40 years to build completely, let alone Aloha Stadium is another issue other's dont realize it take an eternity for Hawaii project to build anything on Small little island.
"Consequences" suggests there isn't benefits to Skyline. While construction has been a debacle, the current system already saves me a significant amount of time during my commute, and I almost always beat those I know that still (somehow) choose to brave the H-1 during rush hour.
in many ways it reminds me of the mess that is Rome's Line C. Costs have ballooned astronomically, archaeological remains have stumped the project (leading to the loss of one station and the dramatic redesigning of several others), the construction was subdivided in segments (instead of doing the whole thing in one go) and they started with the least useful bit.
I live in oahu as well and yeah so far it's not being used but I mean Me and my friends use it all the time, but I wish it went to Milllani and then all the way to town.
8 freeway lanes only being able to move 40,000 people per day is just pathetic. The Shinjuku Station in Tokyo moves 3,000,000+ through it per day. Cars are just too expensive and space inefficient to make any sense as the only mode of transit unless you like being broke and in traffic all the time.
As a lifelong resident of Oahu, I would like to add this little tidbit: The H-3 Interstate highway took almost 30 years to build, the vast majority of which was making sure to avoid ancient burial sites, as well as protected species habitats. There was just as much controversy for that project as there is for the Skyline project. Fast forward to today, and the H-3 is now a vital link between the Windward side of the island to the Aiea/Pearl Harbor area, and NO ONE talks about it anymore. That's the nature of people. They love to complain, but don't mind reaping the benefits of the thing they were complaining about. LOL!!! I say by 2040 (if I'm still alive by then) no one will remember all the "pilikia" (hassle) that is happening now.
Haha, at $366 million per kilometer, this railway better be made out of gold, diamonds, and a little bit of magic! ✨ I mean, at that price, the tracks should come with built-in Wi-Fi, air conditioning, and maybe even a personal butler for each passenger, right? 😅
Now that you mention it, I just realized that the HART Skyline is more expensive than the Jakarta-Bandung HSR that was completed last year. For context, it went over budget up to US$7,3 Billion for a 142 km HSR and that is around US$50 Million per km.
I remember being very young and seeing places before the rail was built. I remember a lot of caution signs and stuff, and being scared that something happened because I didn't understand what was up. I basically grew up with it, I saw it getting longer and longer as I grew. I never rode it before, I always wondered what it'd be like, but the cracking and unstable roads always scared me off.
The cost is way out of line. In round numbers, $11,000 million/20 miles = $550 million/mile. The Oakland Airport BART Connector is a driverless elevated railway that cost $500 million for 3.2 miles = $156 million/mile. I bet there are a lot of Hawaii construction folks with new Tesla's in their three car garage.
Complete gong show. So embarrassing for Oahu. Should have started at the university through Waikiki and downtown, to the airport first. In the amount of time other countries have built a similar system, it could have been wrapped around the entire Island. Obviously they want the new Waikiki to be on the other side, where Disney resort was built.
So many inaccuracies in this video, but let's start with the basics: 1) The rail line is not going to Ala Moana (which would still leave it missing the last mile to get to Waikiki). While that was the original plan, that has now been abandoned. Even the part past Middle Street is now off the table due to funding and land ownership issues. Among other things, 40-story buildings have been built on the original proposed path for the rail (their construction actually enabled by the hypothetical rail line). The part of the rail that was built is the easy part, over agricultural land. It has now reached the city, where land ownership is entangled under several centuries of history going back to the Kingdom days. 2) HART's own estimates are now that rail will not remove even 5% of the current traffic from city streets. 3) When the plebiscite was taken for the rail, it just said "Should there be a rail line?". At that time projected cost was about $3B, of which the feds would pay half. It was also implied that the rail line would reach the University of Hawaii, a major contributor to traffic. The rail is now coming in at a finished cost closer to $20B, with no increase in the federal contribution. That leaves Hawaii on the hook for the bill. 4) Honolulu is actually quite a small city, similar in size to Toledo, Ohio. We lack the tax base of, say, California, to be able to pay for projects of this magnitude. The greater than $100M/yr operating budget will be taken at a loss. In reality, the rail system is the largest land scam in Hawaii in the last 100 years. It's purpose is actually to rezone tracts of land around the rail stations as transit-oriented development. As a result, relatively worthless, generally industrial land suddenly became worth billions per acre. This has given rise to a frenzy of construction of 40-story (the tallest in the state) ultraluxury condo projects. These reach costs of millions of dollars per unit, far beyond local affordability, and are mostly sold to foreign investors. A handful of people got very, very rich from this rail system, and the locals just got extra taxes.
I remember the councilman of salt lake didn't approve of the project so they made a rail line that passed through salt lake. The rail was approved and salt lake was cut out of the line for the airport. This entire project was a money laundering operation headed by Mufi.
So many inaccuracies in your fact check. Skyline was never planned to go to Waikiki or UH Manoa, that was only explored as a further option once we got to Ala Moana. The part past middle street will be completed and is still on the table. The last sections of land needed for the stations are currently undergoing eminent domain. There are no buildings that obstruct the construction of Skyline, with one hypothetical building (it's been an empty lot for the past decade) being in the way of any future planned route. The "worthless" industrial land you are talking about is in Kakaako, and yes while it is being developed into ultraluxury housing for foreign investors, it was never meant to be a transit oriented development. In fact the developers (Howard Hughes) have been in court with HART trying to demand more money out of them for the land that they acquired through eminent domain. The "Ward Village" development would have happened whether or not Skyline was being built, because it was started before Skyline was a serious topic. While their own estimates state that Skyline won't remove any more than 5% of traffic, that is still a lot of cars nonetheless. Anyone would be foolish *to* drive knowing the time and money they could've saved by taking Skyline and TheBus instead of being stuck in traffic congestion. As someone who almost regularly uses it, commuting using it and TheBus is in most cases significantly faster than driving during peak rush hour. And even if so, what would the reality be if the hadn't built it? We don't have the space for more freeway lanes, and ultimately more freeway lanes would induce more traffic to begin with, since most housing growth is happening out in the west side. The Skyline project was estimated to be ~4B dollars, with the feds contributing slightly less than a quarter if I am not correct. The full project is estimated to be 11B, not your 20B that you state. The operating cost is also $85M, not over 100M like you state. While we will take a loss, it's not like we don't take a loss on highways, which people also spend up to 60 hours a year stuck in while degrading the health and mental well being of everyone who lives within a mile of it. Skyline is not, was not, and never will be a scam. As someone who uses it, it is disappointing that it was not built earlier as it removes nearly all stress and friction from my commute and is much faster and cheaper than driving (and all of its associated costs). We also need transit oriented development. Endless sprawl has only fueled car dependency on our island and this has led to us having the worst traffic congestion in the country. We need dense development, because we have a severe housing shortage and a limited amount of land to house said people on it. Skyline was not an excuse to rezone land around its stations. In fact, out in the west side a master plan to make Kapolei the "second city" was in the works for decades, which envisioned transforming all of the agricultural land into housing to address our affordability and congestion crisis. Skyline actually improved this (already existing plans), by then changing much of that into denser transit oriented development that would house more people and stimulating local economic activity.
The issue with the rail is it just doesn't go to a lot of places where people actually want to go. If it can be expanded into the city, with off shoots to places like Salt Lake and UH it would really help with traffic
@lancew71 lol. China has reliable world class mass transit systems that have been in operation for decades. The quality in China is many times better than what is being built in Hawaii. Not even comparable
I was stationed in Hawaii for the Navy from 2011 - 2016 and would have to say, they should change their motto to the traffic jam state, so yes I think this is something that is needed. However, the amount of time they are taking to finish this makes me sick, but doesn't surprise me either. I lived close enough to Kamehameha highway to be able to watch them work on this from my balcony and the sheer amount of just sitting around they did was disgusting. I could be over egadurating, but it seemed like they would work maybe 30 minutes in an 8 hour shift? I noticed the workers would sit around and chat for hours on end getting nothing done, now whether this was because of waiting on materials or because they were encouraged by their company to do so, so that they could make more money I couldn't say. Either way, the sheer slow pace that this thing is being built, at the over budgeting shows yet another example of a government project that is struggling.
you aren't exaggerating at all, its been years and they have hardly done anything past the airport but can at least say the section near aloha stadium/pearl is running so its "successful", despite being empty almost every day meanwhile it already has serious issues breaking down and people needing to walk all the way off already
@@fish_activity Those have happened a couple times, due to automated safety systems stopping the trains where the train cannot connect to the third rail system. They are rare occurrences and are not serious issues that shouldn't be used to damper the fact that the network as a whole has a ~99.4% on time rate (with "on time" being considered within 10 seconds of schedule)
I live in Kapolei and work in Pearl City. Since the traffic is so bad I have to leave 1 hour to travel 7 miles down H1 heading east towards Honolulu in the morning. The only riders I know use it are people who used the bus before. They never had cars to begin with. The Kapolei station was initially suppose to go all the way to the Ka Makana mall but the rail abruptly stops because they were hitting water with the pilings. It’s been very disruptive during the construction of the first phase. I see and travel along side it everyday I work.
At that time remember where the Kapolei station is located, they were allowed to build w/o a fully executed sale price agreed to. They built a** backwards to be able to use the sunk cost fallacy saying we've come this far, we can't stop now. Comedian Tumua even jokes about them not running past Kapolei into Nanakuli and Waianae due to perceptions of the people.
You should make a video about the Newcastle Australia and all the big construction projects that are happening there e.g. the airport and the new container port
Would love to see a dedicated video on the Eglinton LRT in Toronto. 14 years of construction and still no opening date in sight. Probably the most mismanaged and corrupt transit line in the world.
5:13 only the second segment will open in 2025, the third will open 2031 and the fourth is not in the current budget so it is not known if it even will be built
I think this will make them more money in the long run. We didn't really even mention that tourism is a huge part of the economy. Having good transit makes it a city destination people can see more of. And that mean people will be visiting more locations and more taxes spent at businesses like hotels and restaurants. Less money spent resurfacing roads for Ubers and rental cars. Also good for carbon footprint.
Honolulu resident here:: incompetence seems clear, but no proof of corruption. The hotels in Waikiki decided to oppose putting transit in Waikiki unless it was underground (so as to preserve the esthetic). Since Waikiki is the most densely populated part of Oahu, and the major employment center, I don't think they will get sufficient ridership numbers without going there. I hope that when they do extend HART, they decide to go into Waikiki or it will probably be a lost opportunity and never justify its expense.
I am a local teen still living in Hawaii, Oahu and I have a great view of Skyline. But I will say this is a waste of money though I don't understand much about transportation on the ground I do know they could have done better with that $11B to strengthen our tourism or our economy.
@@AL-lh2ht Thats for basically every city in the world what makes Hawaii so special? Literally every time I look at Skyline there is like 7 people on it which shows how much it does for the community. The Bus is better than Skyline lol
If completed, this "train" will transport slightly more people than a monorail at an amusement park but less efficiency. Also, it will be inoperable most of the time. Good idea and the island needs one but unfortunately it's Hawaii and well we'll just say maybe in another 25 years there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony but they'll forget the ribbon. Oh Hawaii I guess you mean well lol.
Remove 40,000 cars off the road? If you take 5000 cars off the road then H-1 becomes a viable option. My guess is that if the rail shaves off 30 minutes of a 90 minute commute then people will stay in their cars. The question is how many cars have to leave for H-1 and the rail to reach an equalibriam. 5000? 10000? It ain't 40000.
According to the rail’s final EIS, table 3-12, the rail will remove 48,200 cars from the road in 2030. It’s also worth noting that their estimate of traffic in 2030 is 2,815,800 without rail, 2,767,600 with, hence the 48,200 improvement. That works out to 1.7%, or roughly one out of every 59 cars. Probably not even noticeable Of course the rail was supposed to be completed to Ala Moana in January of 2020 and they’re currently 11 years behind schedule. They’ve also shortened the route by two stations and 1.2 miles, ending it at the imaginary “civic center,” so that 48,200 will undoubtedly be lower.
From it's inception, the designers never fully addressed how the "scale" or size of the project would affect the local community. We are talking about an island of about 600 square miles with much of it mountainous. It is destroying the natural beauty of our island.
I wish you wouldn't cast the technology as some sort of revolutionary idea, just because it's the first system in the USA. It's pretty much standard all over the world for high capacity transit now. Vancouver has been using it for Skytrain since the 80s, and it's incredibly efficient and well used, because it goes where people need to be. This line looks like it was built backwards, with the lowest density areas done first. The existing stations are also classic North American car-oriented thinking - surrounded by parking lots and freeways. It makes no sense. No one wants to walk to the interstate to catch the train, and people without cars don't want to walk through a massive parking lot to get to the station. Going from the airport to downtown is what will start to drive ridership to the level people expect. Looking at the map it's obvious they already need to plan an extension into Waikiki, an up to the University. Looks like a good project to build, poorly planned and executed.
The mistake was starting in the area least busy first. While more expensive initially, starting in the city then going west would already have a population center that could use the service more often than what it is now.
They did this because they needed a place to build a railyard, and the areas they started are being developed, so those communities could be built around the Skyline stations instead of the other way around.
The Little Andaman project is not a sustainable initiative compared to the second project located in Vizhinjam in Kerala. The Vizhinjam project is strategically positioned near an international trade route, making it a better choice for trade purposes. While the Little Andaman project raises significant environmental concerns, the Vizhinjam project does not face such issues. With the ongoing economic boom in India, the Vikas Bharat initiative appears more viable and economically promising. The Vizhinjam project, with its proximity to Thiruvananthapuram, promotes regional development and benefits nearby cities. This government-backed initiative strengthens the economy by facilitating mother ship connections, making it a key player in enhancing India's trade capabilities. Moreover, the Vizhinjam project is expected to transform the region into a shipping hub for India. The first phase of this project is set to be completed by 2024, with further developments planned to attract more investment into the region. Economically, it is a more viable and sustainable option compared to the time-consuming and resource-intensive Little Andaman project.
Most people hate it but don't ride it I ride it twice everyday And I love it I get home so fast and I get to work so reliably I think it's a real boost to my day to not have to sit in traffic 1 to 2 and 1/2 hours to get home 25 mi away. They also allow me to bring my e-bike on the train so I do not have to walk to the stations It is the perfect solution to my commute and I can't wait till it reaches town so I can go shopping and get there in minutes not hours.
Tbh, I only watched this vid to see the work I built. As a resident of Oahu, I voted for the rail just to have work. Now we got rail road workers using the rail. But honestly, that’s the only use of the rail my family has seen. None of my family uses it.
Corruption and idiocy are major reasons. Doesn't take much thought to see that when a project's price tag increases ten fold from when it started there are some serious questions about those in control.
Hawaii is the definition of paving over paradise. They rebuilt Detroit on a tropical island, it's madness. Let's hope all the lead and particulate matter in the air hasn't made the people there too stupid to fix this. An automated railway is a good start!
From a person that lives here in Hawaii there problem is spending money on the wrong things couple years ago the ppl running the government had more money in there pockets. Also the rail way the pillars that are holding it up every pillar has art on in no paint art but engraved into the concrete pillar
Having lived in Oahu when this “Jolly Trolly “ was being sold to residents of a bedroom community who all thought they would get their own private lane on H1 when all the other suckers would be riding the rail to nowhere! The original cost to build was just over $5 billion, my estimate the finish cost to be over $20 billion if and when done. They a currently adding taxes to outer islands in the Hawaiian chain to fund this fiasco, don’t hold your breath!
We have a rental that we have to pay excise tax on. It went up 0.5 percent a long time ago to pay for this project. They originally said the increase would be in place for about 4 years. Not a chance. This project is way over budget, poorly designed, managed and constructed. But luckily we live in California now. Oh wait.
In Hawaii-it’s why build it right the first time when you can keep work on building until you retire. Like H3 10 mile freeway 30 years. It took 6-7 years to add 2 lanes to a stretch of 3 miles of Kalanianaole highway. Big part of the problem is the corruption when every level except the Federal is corrupt in your state it’s hard for the people to benefit. People rather vote in a known corrupt democrat than a unknown candidate. The dept of transportation ideal to help traffic is reduce speed limits, remove lanes, add traffic lights where not needed, add speed humps where not needed, more no right turn on red lights. There biggest innovation is an ideal many decades old of having all corner walk and don’t walk signals at busy intersections. Which means they met quota of 1 thing to improve traffic for the decade.
First, the final destination has changed three times. Currently it will stop two miles short of Ala Moana center, and is said to end in Kakaako. And as a driverless system there is no one to assist passengers if there is a problem. Since the opening of a shortened finished part of the rail, the train has had problems four time during it's fifteen month run, with passenger stuck in the trains between stations, and the Fire Dept. having to rescue passengers once. And the 11 billion dollar price tag that you quoted was raised to 15 billion back in Sept. of 2024. As for the train wheels not fitting the tracks, the problem goes deeper than what you state. (This is getting frustrating. (DO YOUR HOME WORK BEFORE PUBLISHING A BUNCH OF STUFF WITH AS MANY HOLES IN IT AS THE HONOLULU TRAIN PROJECT!)
It is picking up though, I was on it the other day coming from Aloha Stadium towards Waipahu, in the later afternoon, and I had to walk through a few cars to find a seat.
Something I didn't mention is that in the environmental impact study they said the rail would remove 1% of the traffic. So the original cost of $4B which expanded to $11B and the 1% was looking at the full route including UH and Waikiki. They kept pushing that rail would lessen traffic but I can't remember them mentioning a number or percentage. Ultimately, their main argument was a lie to not improve for anyone and yet they would spend BILLIONS for zero improvements. The question would be who lined their pockets with the boondoggle?
I want to make this clear, I'm for this project but why would you start a new transit system where you have a planned route in the area with the least populated section and least amount of immediate need for transit? I would think you would want to start from the opposite direction and build a few rail stations in the section of the city that is the most densely population, next to the mall, plenty of nearby businesses, and where you see a lot of foot traffic already. It makes more sense to me that they should've started building there that way they would be generating a good amount of revenue and getting community buy-in when they start using the transit.
You did your research on pronunciations which I applaud you for. The only one you messed up is Kakaako. In Hawaiian every vowel is pronounced even when doubled, so it's not Kakako, it's Kaka ako.
It’s so ridiculous this has happened to the beautiful island. Many people have already died from crashing into the pillars. I live on Oahu and the amount of congestion it’s about to cause to the downtown area the next 10 years as it’s still well behind schedule is going to be such an issue to the city. And I think the people on the other islands who will never ride it are taxed for its construction. It will cost much more than the $10b price tag.
I think they need to connect to the airport personally. They are a tourist destination after all. Sure there will be buses going there. But I would just have a directed line for it. Maybe in phase 2. Would be more simple to visit then worrying about a rental car.
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What do you think? Is building the Skyline worth it? Thanks a lot for watching 💛
Please cover Riyadh metro, it's first metro in Saudi with six lines and costing 22.5 billion dollars. It will launch this month. Would love to see a video about it's delays, the project success or failure and the 7th line to Qiddiya that was announced.
Please Hindi Dubbed 😍
8:42 - What up with that? First verse in a rap song?
The Little Andaman project is not a sustainable initiative compared to the second project located in Vizhinjam in Kerala. The Vizhinjam project is strategically positioned near an international trade route, making it a better choice for trade purposes. While the Little Andaman project raises significant environmental concerns, the Vizhinjam project does not face such issues.
With the ongoing economic boom in India, the Vikas Bharat initiative appears more viable and economically promising. The Vizhinjam project, with its proximity to Thiruvananthapuram, promotes regional development and benefits nearby cities. This government-backed initiative strengthens the economy by facilitating mother ship connections, making it a key player in enhancing India's trade capabilities.
Moreover, the Vizhinjam project is expected to transform the region into a shipping hub for India. The first phase of this project is set to be completed by 2024, with further developments planned to attract more investment into the region. Economically, it is a more viable and sustainable option compared to the time-consuming and resource-intensive Little Andaman project.
If the gov spent 50 years to talk, plan, and budget, just tunnel bore it and get it done by the time finish talking.
I worked on that rail, The general contractor was STG when I left, out of my 35 years of working in construction! STG was by far the worst company I’ve ever worked for!!! Poor planning poor communication lack of accountability!!!
Lowest bid right?
NAN INC gonna be worse.
The idea of pausing construction of the system before getting to the denser part of town where it's needed most would change this from super costly but worthwhile to simply a tragic waste of money.
Great video, love that you're giving this project the attention it deserves, being the first automated metro system in the US. However at 5:12, there seems to be a slight error, as the 2nd segment is actually the only one opening in 2025, while the 3rd segment is planned for 2031 and the 4th segment still has a date yet to be decided.
7pm closing time is nuts.
Silly that they didn't want to activate the Pearl Harbor and AIRPORT Stations sooner since it's track is done - those are Stations that people would use. Delaying it's opening for completion of 2 more stations is Stupid.
The Dillingham Track fiasco with relocating all Street Utility lines shows Poor planning and awareness on Rail Officials. King Street/Downtown/Ala Moana track will be similar.
They'll extend it to at least 10:30pm when phase 2 opens.
@@hillyseattlenarrowstreets6087 Pearl Harbour and the Airport station are just as important as the Lagoon Drive and Kalihi Transit Center stations, and the latter two are arguably even more important for commuters that actually use TheBus and Skyline right now, as they will be the stations to have express bus service into town.
Before the last mayor of Honolulu left office, he opted to not renew the ceo of HARTs contract. He worked on multiple well known transit projects. The former mayor then brought in his own friend as the replacement … her experience is trash management. Whole project stinks of corruption & red tape.
City and County is full of favoritism/nepotism, so much incompetence in the management positions. Honolulu is doomed!
@@meegssan5716 That's why we refer to it as the "Sitting and Counting" of Honolulu. LOL!
Good call choosing an elevated rail transit. Cities with at grade rail systems experience more delays for many reasons.
Also the floodiing
It's only a good call if it gets riders. The problem is it could be replaced with a bus line with how few riders it is getting, and they keep trimming stations off the end (which was all the important stops like the university of Hawaii and Ala Moana Shopping Center, which has the facilities and space to be the main bus hub of the city). Even if it goes to Civic center, Civic center doesn't have the space to be the main bus hub like Ala Moana is, and you've already lost the ten thousand potential bus riders from the university. No one would have gone elevated rail for this route back when it was $5.2 billion. Now that the cost has doubled and expected ridership is swirling the toilet the only thing keeping this project going is "it is too late to stop" and the Federal government is paying for the last piece since $600 million in federal funding is reserved for the final stage. But even that might be at risk given how far out of compliance the project has gone and the incoming Trump administration might be aggressive in cutting costs even if it gets the Federal and state government into a lawsuit.
I wish LA figured this out
@@jofujinoif you build it they will come
@accordiongordon But they aren't building all of it. In fact they aren't even building the most important stops. This is like building a baseball diamond with only enough money to make the infield, and then counting on crowds to show up.
Welcome to 1980s technology. Vancouver has had a driverless LRT system since 1986 in the form of the SkyTrain. Probably the most successful LRT in all of North America
It's not light rail, its light METRO it's still considered heavy rail ALM automated light metro
Can’t it be considered light metro? I mean is it high floor like NYC subway?
@@nopunts9947 it is light metro don't know they are calling let 🫲🤨🫱
I live in Vancouver, and this looks a lot like our Skytrain system. Elevated rail, light rail, commuter system automated trains, its got everything our skytrain system has.
which is better Seattle or Vancouver?
@@pranshukrishna5105obv Vancouver cause we have great rapid busses the sea bus amazing regional busses, 3 trains and excellent times
And we got the SkyTrain back in 1986 😅
Here on Oahu, it’s now called The Skyline.
The cracks in the columns comes from what they did to them; they were designed and built properly but then after the fact they decided "Oh hey, let's take a few inches off to carve in a design along DBZ way." Which, as you could imagine caused structural problems.
I don't live in Hawaii, but it's definitely worth it. One thing I thought is illogical is why did they start building it from the boondocks to downtown and not the other way around? Why would anyone be surprised that ridership at this point is only 3,000 per day? Did they do this just because it's cheaper to build out in nowhere? They still need to build the rest. I can't imagine New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vancouver, etc., not building their subway systems from the center outward.
Excellent observation...they (the proponents of the rail) did it strategically to keep the costs down until they were at a point where the project couldn't be canceled. They under reported what the costs were gonna be and they knew when the construction got into the urban areas, the prices were gonna go thru the roof. If they had started logically from Ala Moana to the airport.... it would have been shut down years ago. They knew exactly what they were doing starting the project backwards.
There's no space to store and or service the trains if they build from town. The storage yard is out in Kapolei. So if they did build from Honolulu to Kapolei, the system wouldn't be running until it's finished. Just my observations.
Rail sucks I ran for office as anti rail because we need since the 1960s that it would not be sustainable or logical we mass transit for a place with less than 900k population and the linear limitations was always asinine by pure common sense. The 15 billion it will cost means that we could have given each family $40k to by their own cars the. .5 percent Get tax killing us too
VERY much need to extend this to Nanakuli via the Ko Olina Resorts!! The H1 is a nightmare to the west here! Also need to go East to the University area!!
Agree, it should at least go to Ko Olina, and eventually Waiani in the leeward direction.
They could easily build the rail at grade on the old sugar cane rail road tracks. It would save a ton if money. I don't know what they were thinking. The rail could've easily went all the way to nanakuli and the resorts out there also. There's so much space, it should also have a small extension that actually goes all the way to Kapolei.
Overall the Slyline still can be a good project, however having the first section opened be so close to but not even connecting to the airport, and having many of the completed stations located on highways requiring an additional bus ride to get to destinations riders would actually want to travel to really makes it seem like a "train to nowhere" which makes it look quite bad in the moment.
How can such a relatively simple civic project can cause such discord?
Corruption, Incompetence, Ancient Tribal Burial Ground!? King Kamehameha is shaking his head…
We are a small island. Projects like this will cost 10x more than other places. Plus may be a lot of corruption and folks creating challenges for the project.
This can be compared to a fairly long nine-mile expansion of the light rail SAN DIEGO TROLLEY system that was recently completed in my hometown of San Diego, connecting Old Town with an extension that largely was built elevated for seven of the nine miles up through parts of La Jolla and through the sprawling campus of University of California San Diego in La Jolla…unlike the Hawaii Skyline, however, the process went smoothly here (as it was an extension of an extensive and well run transit system that had been extended several times in its forty year history and now stretches more than twenty five miles north from the US Mexico border up to the UCSD campus and 15 miles east into El Cajon)..It was finished three months EARLY as well as almost $100 million UNDER its $4 billion budget
My hope is that once it at least gets to the airport the ridership will increase a little and then continue to increase the further it gets into Honolulu. I know right now the terminus is planned as being Ala Moana Center (which is great, to be fair), but I hope they can get it into Waikiki, and then further on to UH Manoa and east to places like KCC and Kahala Mall and then maybe even as far as Hawaii Kai. On the west side, an eventual extension to Ko Olina would be awesome.
I wanted to take the train to my hotel in a few weeks but the airport station isn’t even open yet. Ridership will be huge once everything is open.
loved this video! I think you've done a great job explaining the rail issue on our island. I'm hoping somehow in the future we can get an extension to UH and further west, and that when the new stadium is built the rail will be prioritized instead of personal transport by car. I've taken the rail a fair amount of times already and I really like how safe and clean it feels, especially given the automated platform doors.
I didn't know this existed when I visited. It would be a massive improvement to connect the airport to Waikiki
That would be logical, but hawaii is run by corrupt politicians and the rail won't have a stop at the airport.
Ayo a video on Hawaii ?! Let's goooo !
Personally this thing doesn't come anywhere remotely near where I live so it serves next to zero purpose for me .
I still think it's for the best in the long run (the way the project went about could've been VASTLY more thought out and better executed) . Once the rails get expanded and more places get a station for access is when I'll consider using it .
The fact it will have any effect on decreasing traffic is enough to be a benefit to you
@@AL-lh2ht Oahu has a population of a little less than one million. That means that for ever single adult and child on Oahu they have a tax burden of over 11K just to build the Skyline. That ignores the fact that the Skyline will never generate a profit so it will need to be subsidized each year.
Then there is the fact that this only serves a fairly small part of the population of the island as it goes along less than 20 miles of the island and will only have 19 stops. This isn't a fairly robust system like the Metro in NYC, Sound / King transit in Seattle or JR in Japan. All of those I have used and are excellent. I cannot see Skyline approaching anything even remotely as effective as those systems.
Remember that 11B is for a shortened version that was approved by tax payers. That provides stations that lack basic amenities like toilets open to the public.
@@Komainu959No transportation generates a profit.
Where do you live? There's bus connections to almost any neighbourhood along its route and during commuter hours buses that come as frequently as the trains do.
@@Komainu959 And why does Skyline have to generate a profit in order for it to be useful? Freeways are 100% subsidised, yet we don't question them. It also does, in fact, serve a sizable amount of the population, and it is not a standalone system and never was intended to be. Oahu has a robust and expansive bus system that will get you from every neighbourhood along its alignment to the nearest station, and from my experience it is more than sufficient for general commuting needs. The "shortened" version in question is only two stops less, and while admittedly this cuts off service to the largest transit hub on the island, most commuters would likely only go as far as the central business district to begin with, and there is more than adequate bus service from there.
Yeah, building these kinds of projects is super important. It’s embarrassing how bad we are at completing them.
Not "we"...
It's the corrupt politicians and the corrupt contractors...
it’s definitely “we”. We elect them.
its a politician problem but its also a regulation problem. Insane amount of regulations make it impossible to build anything in less than 10-20 years
@@amifunnymynameisbob We also see a lot of private citizens put up obstructive lawsuits. These cost tons in time and money.
The more I learn about transit history, the more I come to realize that we don't have nice things because Regan :(
It's hard to imagine anyone commuting on H1 after work saying it's not worth it.
I've been following this since the very beginning (from afar) and still scratch my head as to why they didn't start from the city centre.
Aloha Stadium to Ala Moana Center... instead, it became a vanity project.
It has to be completed for everyone's interests, but good luck convincing Congress to fund future rail projects.
Mate, as soon as they started explanaing where construction began, within 30 seconds I thought to myself. "Well they started at the wrong end of the track" 🤦♂️
Something so glaringly obvious!
How can that be overlooked?
Start at the city, establish an instant clientele after stage one where the population is greatest, then use those profits to pour back into stage 2 and only build as the demand increases from the city towards the outskirts.
This is how every city has been built since the beginning of time, they have done this entire project backwards 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🚝
No coincidence that the train itself doesn't distinguish from front or back, because it even looks like it could be driving backwards.
Also it doesn't have a pilot in the actual train, when it appears that the entire project doesn't have a pilot.
The train mimicks the project.
Backwards. and driverless.
Painful to watch.
poor locals. ❤️🩹🚝🤦♂️👑
I get that the outer population wants to get into the city, but essentially they are trying to build a bridge 32km long.
That is what I call a bridge too far. 🚟🌁🏝
They started far outside of the city's centre because it would've been too costly finding a place to put a railyard anywhere near Honolulu proper. The stations were built in "the middle of open fields" because those areas are currently under heavy development and it would be significantly easier to build the station first and have the rest of the communities built around it.
Yes, there are many things that could've been done better, but as someone who uses it (in all of its limited fashion) regularly to commute now, I only hold support for this project and push for its completion, at all costs.
They (the proponents of the rail) did it strategically to keep the costs down until they were at a point where the project couldn't be canceled. They under reported what the costs were gonna be and they knew when the construction got into the urban areas, the prices were gonna go thru the roof. If they had started logically from Ala Moana to the airport.... it would have been shut down years ago. They knew exactly what they were doing starting the project backwards.
@@smizu1442 If they started in Ala Moana, we wouldn't HAVE any sort of system because there's literally no room to put a railyard anywhere near town. Their current baseyard next to LCC was practically gifted to them, and if not for that, the contingent baseyard would've been in Kapolei, exactly where they started building it.
3:10 ”out-there proposals” Magnetic Levitation (MagLev) trains are already operational in China, Japan, and South Korea.
Power to sustain MagLev Rail would exceed existing Power Grid. Majority of Oahu power is shipped in on fuel tankers, Solar can only supplement power needs.
@@hillyseattlenarrowstreets6087 The scamline is not exactly sipping electricity.
“Once rail opens for service, HECO expects the city’s 20-mile, 21-station rail line to be among its 10-largest customers in terms of demand, according to Ching. HART expects the rail system will initially require nearly 15 megawatts of power to operate the entire line, according to figures provided by HECO.” civil beat 8/22/2019
With a big project like this, people just need to give it time to get build out. It's still under construction, and luckily, they seem to be on track to finish the other segments in the near future. Once the downtown and airport segments are finished, it'll be very useful. This is great news and I'd love to visit when it's finished. Keep in mind, the great metro systems around the world were not built in a day. I saw their are proposals to expand to the University and Waikiki and other areas which would be great to see in the future.
There's a valid argument that it costs too much when other countries could build for less. Ultimately, it comes down to bureaucracy and poor management which was mentioned in the video. Metro systems in America need to start streamlining design and engineering in-house. A lot of that cost is paying other people to come in a do the work for way more, taking up valuable resources and time. If we had design, engineering teams for these metro systems, the cost for these projects wouldn't be so astronomical, and we could see regular expansions to our metro systems rather than once a decade.
That being said, it is difficult to compete against free (go figure). By that, I mean, highways are subsidized by an insane margin that it's no wonder cities opt for building them instead of public transportation. Long term as cities are finding out, they can't keep up with the infrastructure cost of these huge highways that take up valuable space away from urban development. It's not sustainable how we build our infrastructure in the US. It needs to change. Deregulate!
2/19/2006: 28 miles Kapolei to Manoa, $2.5 billion
3/1/2007: 20 miles Kapolei to Ala Moana, $3.6 billion
Full funding grant agreement with the FTA: 12/19/2012: Kapolei to Ala Moana, 20 miles, 21 stations, completed by 1/31/2020, $5.12 billion
11/9/2021: Kapolei to Ala Moana, 20 miles, 21 stations, $12.45 billion, completed in 2031
6/3/2022 “recovery” plan: 18.9 miles, 19 stations, $9.933 billion, updated to $10.065 billion
Firstly the line needs to be finished. It needs to have actual destinations people want to go to or else ridership will never be enough to pay for its running costs! Secondly pay for it via a tourist tax/overnight stay fee increase. Thirdly allow towers of unlimited height but with no car parking spaces to be built within 750 yards of all train stations. Within 10 years you have a great daily ridership of hotel guests, office workers and residents all using the rail line to get about. Very few people are going to use the line of you jave to get off the train and catch a bus the final 3 miles!
Elevated rail is the smartest move. Foot traffic is the life blood of retail, so getting tourists around easier, is ideal.
The line does not go into Waikiki.
This "hi tech" solution has been running in Copenhagen since 2004
Same in London. For decades 😂
Vancouver as well since 1985
Yup. Hi tech for America... Which is like 80's pop being current in Russia now... ;-)
Lille, France since 1983!
Singapore since 1987
It's Great That Hawaii Have A Train Service so Traffic Can Ease Congestion on Freeways Amazing Videos
Ahahahahahahaha!!!
sure but this train wont even get you to downtown, also 3/4's of the island cant even access it without driving far
In the US you will be accused of corruption when building something even if it doesn't exist. Because lots of people love to be the villians of public transit.
Use the undertrack areas, as well. Gardens, skateboard parks, tennis courts, hoops, et cetera could use this large windfall creatively.
Totally agree.
The undertrack area is already busy streets
@@cjgairi9398This person doesn't live here😅
The biggest challenge with certain locations of Oahu is everything of note is in Honolulu increasing ease of access to Honolulu from areas like Waikiki would easily make my life better
Dubai has already doing driverless trains since 2009. And all 75 kilometres are driverless making it in the world records
Not anymore. Singapore is way ahead.
2009 that’s when they started building the high-speed rail system in California. Democrats stole all that money but I hear it’s really fast
Hainan in China. Exists. 600km ring high speed rail on a tropical island with same conditions. Ironically often called as "Hawaii of China". Same elevated design. Same huricanes, mountains and complicated soil. Not mentioning, that it's connected to the mainland rail system with ferry. Yes. Trains are entering the ferry, crossing the sea, and reentering the rail system.
The ferry trains are not that uncommon. That's how Sicily is connected to mainland Italy. There also is a train between Stockholm and Berlin, that takes the ferry across the Baltic sea. There even used to be a ferry train on the lake Constance between Austria, Germany and Switzerland. But that's in the past.
The key ingredients are China's weak property rights, small chances to fight the government and overall much cheaper construction costs. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some corners may have been cut, since it's, sadly, still a common occurrence in China.
Of course, the US is on the other end of the spectrum, together with the UK and Canada, for building extremely slow and extremely expensive, being basically a joke at this point.
Any democratic country has better examples than China. There's France, Spain, Japan and Korea.
The key ingredients are China's weak property rights, small chances to fight the government and overall much cheaper construction costs. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some corners may have been cut, since it's, sadly, still a common occurrence in China.
Of course, the US is on the other end of the spectrum, together with the UK and Canada, for building extremely slow and extremely expensive, being basically a joke at this point.
Any democratic country has better examples than China. There's France, Spain, Japan and Korea.
@@martinbruhn5274 i was about to mention Sicily. Done that crossing many many times, i am looking forward to the bridge though, cause it normally takes over an hour between disconnecting the cars, fitting them piece by piece in the ferry and then putting them back together on the other side, and if you're doing this trip in the summer, the whole time you have no electricity and so no AC. The bridge would cut all that down to a few minutes, especially on HSR.
@@martinbruhn5274 They are. Train system of Europe are good too indeed. I added it to highlight infrastructure of railway system of tropical island of China, of almost same Latitude and weather conditions, compared to Hawaii.
It should continue as a circle around the entire island
at $550 million per mile? Food luck with that.
It SHOULD, yes, but only way that would happen is if you cut out the unions and had China build it; Good luck with both of those.
Excellent video! I've lived on Oahu twice in my life, and yes, it's getting increasingly *congested* , and a rail system has always been needed.
it will never alleviate anywhere close to 1% of traffic. waste of tax payer money, surrounded by corruption.
"You can't build that" "corruption" is pretty much code for... I have oil stocks and I don't want them losing value :)
You nailed it! Love reading your comments!
It's a good future proof project but it needs to run 24/7/365 and have Transit Oriented Developments built at each station site for it to really get use like Vancouver or Hong Kong...
Hi MegaBuilds, you should consider doing a video about Singapore's Tuas Megaport. It is a massive construction project on reclaimed land and when fully complete will be the world's largest port.
A pretty good summary of the HART system but you left out the fact the system was to serve the University of Hawaii, Manoa but it was short-stopped at Ala Moana . UHM is the number one commuter destination , not downtown.
Also you left out the fact that SIDA (State Independent Taxi Association) tied up the project in lawsuits to prevent the rail from serving the airport. And thereby cutting into their lucrative. Waikiki to HNL business.
I was there when convicted felon and city counsel woman, Rene Mansho cast the killer vote to prevent funding the project 30 years ago. The vote was to impose a ½ of 1% tax increase for 10 years to fund the project . No doubt the project would have been already completed by now at considerable savings if not for her.
The project does not terminate at Kapolei but in a deserted sugar cane field. What were they thinking?
I suspect lack of service to Waikiki has something to do with those pesky taxi drivers.
And as of now it’s still not even going to Ala Moana, but stopping at Civic Center.
The worst planning and filled with criticism in general, research and more research should have been done to prevent delays for more then 15 years and still not finished since 2009 and public input by tax payers should have voted or given a right of choice. The Public in general had no choice it was forced by government . People knows it 😊will be more then 40 years to build completely, let alone Aloha Stadium is another issue other's dont realize it take an eternity for Hawaii project to build anything on Small little island.
Thanks for reporting on this debacle.
I pray that all works out as I am in Hawaii and will financially feel the consequences of what occurs.
"Consequences" suggests there isn't benefits to Skyline. While construction has been a debacle, the current system already saves me a significant amount of time during my commute, and I almost always beat those I know that still (somehow) choose to brave the H-1 during rush hour.
in many ways it reminds me of the mess that is Rome's Line C. Costs have ballooned astronomically, archaeological remains have stumped the project (leading to the loss of one station and the dramatic redesigning of several others), the construction was subdivided in segments (instead of doing the whole thing in one go) and they started with the least useful bit.
I live in oahu as well and yeah so far it's not being used but I mean Me and my friends use it all the time, but I wish it went to Milllani and then all the way to town.
When the next phase opens they're gonna make at least one all-day express to central from the pearl highlands station
8 freeway lanes only being able to move 40,000 people per day is just pathetic. The Shinjuku Station in Tokyo moves 3,000,000+ through it per day. Cars are just too expensive and space inefficient to make any sense as the only mode of transit unless you like being broke and in traffic all the time.
As a lifelong resident of Oahu, I would like to add this little tidbit: The H-3 Interstate highway took almost 30 years to build, the vast majority of which was making sure to avoid ancient burial sites, as well as protected species habitats. There was just as much controversy for that project as there is for the Skyline project. Fast forward to today, and the H-3 is now a vital link between the Windward side of the island to the Aiea/Pearl Harbor area, and NO ONE talks about it anymore. That's the nature of people. They love to complain, but don't mind reaping the benefits of the thing they were complaining about. LOL!!! I say by 2040 (if I'm still alive by then) no one will remember all the "pilikia" (hassle) that is happening now.
$366,000,000 per kilometer of built rail.
Absolute insanity.
What's it made from? Gold and diamonds?
Corruption🗿🍷
Haha, at $366 million per kilometer, this railway better be made out of gold, diamonds, and a little bit of magic! ✨ I mean, at that price, the tracks should come with built-in Wi-Fi, air conditioning, and maybe even a personal butler for each passenger, right? 😅
buddy has no idea where hawaii is on the map
Now that you mention it, I just realized that the HART Skyline is more expensive than the Jakarta-Bandung HSR that was completed last year.
For context, it went over budget up to US$7,3 Billion for a 142 km HSR and that is around US$50 Million per km.
Hawaii got ripped off, time to do a federal investigation
There are countries like china , having more than 10,000 km of metro but also some countries struggling to build 30 km metro😂
Can you think of a reason why ?
look at the quality of the chinese metro system, look at videos about the issues of the chinese metro. it isn’t sustainable for china.
You surly are looking at the wrong videos 😂😂@@denizgab2167
Surely you're watching the wrong content@@denizgab2167
@@stankythecat6735red tape, bureaucratic bloat, inferior system, democrats.
Good job on pronunciation of Hawaiian place names.
Only one short-coming: "Kaka'ako" has two a's in a row, with *both pronounced* , as in "Kaka-ako".
I remember being very young and seeing places before the rail was built. I remember a lot of caution signs and stuff, and being scared that something happened because I didn't understand what was up. I basically grew up with it, I saw it getting longer and longer as I grew. I never rode it before, I always wondered what it'd be like, but the cracking and unstable roads always scared me off.
The cost is way out of line. In round numbers, $11,000 million/20 miles = $550 million/mile. The Oakland Airport BART Connector is a driverless elevated railway that cost $500 million for 3.2 miles = $156 million/mile. I bet there are a lot of Hawaii construction folks with new Tesla's in their three car garage.
Complete gong show. So embarrassing for Oahu. Should have started at the university through Waikiki and downtown, to the airport first. In the amount of time other countries have built a similar system, it could have been wrapped around the entire Island. Obviously they want the new Waikiki to be on the other side, where Disney resort was built.
big fan as always
So many inaccuracies in this video, but let's start with the basics:
1) The rail line is not going to Ala Moana (which would still leave it missing the last mile to get to Waikiki). While that was the original plan, that has now been abandoned. Even the part past Middle Street is now off the table due to funding and land ownership issues. Among other things, 40-story buildings have been built on the original proposed path for the rail (their construction actually enabled by the hypothetical rail line). The part of the rail that was built is the easy part, over agricultural land. It has now reached the city, where land ownership is entangled under several centuries of history going back to the Kingdom days.
2) HART's own estimates are now that rail will not remove even 5% of the current traffic from city streets.
3) When the plebiscite was taken for the rail, it just said "Should there be a rail line?". At that time projected cost was about $3B, of which the feds would pay half. It was also implied that the rail line would reach the University of Hawaii, a major contributor to traffic. The rail is now coming in at a finished cost closer to $20B, with no increase in the federal contribution. That leaves Hawaii on the hook for the bill.
4) Honolulu is actually quite a small city, similar in size to Toledo, Ohio. We lack the tax base of, say, California, to be able to pay for projects of this magnitude. The greater than $100M/yr operating budget will be taken at a loss.
In reality, the rail system is the largest land scam in Hawaii in the last 100 years. It's purpose is actually to rezone tracts of land around the rail stations as transit-oriented development. As a result, relatively worthless, generally industrial land suddenly became worth billions per acre. This has given rise to a frenzy of construction of 40-story (the tallest in the state) ultraluxury condo projects. These reach costs of millions of dollars per unit, far beyond local affordability, and are mostly sold to foreign investors. A handful of people got very, very rich from this rail system, and the locals just got extra taxes.
I remember the councilman of salt lake didn't approve of the project so they made a rail line that passed through salt lake. The rail was approved and salt lake was cut out of the line for the airport. This entire project was a money laundering operation headed by Mufi.
So many inaccuracies in your fact check.
Skyline was never planned to go to Waikiki or UH Manoa, that was only explored as a further option once we got to Ala Moana.
The part past middle street will be completed and is still on the table. The last sections of land needed for the stations are currently undergoing eminent domain.
There are no buildings that obstruct the construction of Skyline, with one hypothetical building (it's been an empty lot for the past decade) being in the way of any future planned route.
The "worthless" industrial land you are talking about is in Kakaako, and yes while it is being developed into ultraluxury housing for foreign investors, it was never meant to be a transit oriented development. In fact the developers (Howard Hughes) have been in court with HART trying to demand more money out of them for the land that they acquired through eminent domain. The "Ward Village" development would have happened whether or not Skyline was being built, because it was started before Skyline was a serious topic.
While their own estimates state that Skyline won't remove any more than 5% of traffic, that is still a lot of cars nonetheless. Anyone would be foolish *to* drive knowing the time and money they could've saved by taking Skyline and TheBus instead of being stuck in traffic congestion. As someone who almost regularly uses it, commuting using it and TheBus is in most cases significantly faster than driving during peak rush hour. And even if so, what would the reality be if the hadn't built it? We don't have the space for more freeway lanes, and ultimately more freeway lanes would induce more traffic to begin with, since most housing growth is happening out in the west side.
The Skyline project was estimated to be ~4B dollars, with the feds contributing slightly less than a quarter if I am not correct. The full project is estimated to be 11B, not your 20B that you state.
The operating cost is also $85M, not over 100M like you state. While we will take a loss, it's not like we don't take a loss on highways, which people also spend up to 60 hours a year stuck in while degrading the health and mental well being of everyone who lives within a mile of it.
Skyline is not, was not, and never will be a scam. As someone who uses it, it is disappointing that it was not built earlier as it removes nearly all stress and friction from my commute and is much faster and cheaper than driving (and all of its associated costs). We also need transit oriented development. Endless sprawl has only fueled car dependency on our island and this has led to us having the worst traffic congestion in the country. We need dense development, because we have a severe housing shortage and a limited amount of land to house said people on it.
Skyline was not an excuse to rezone land around its stations. In fact, out in the west side a master plan to make Kapolei the "second city" was in the works for decades, which envisioned transforming all of the agricultural land into housing to address our affordability and congestion crisis. Skyline actually improved this (already existing plans), by then changing much of that into denser transit oriented development that would house more people and stimulating local economic activity.
The issue with the rail is it just doesn't go to a lot of places where people actually want to go. If it can be expanded into the city, with off shoots to places like Salt Lake and UH it would really help with traffic
Its planned to go in the city, said city has the wst traffic in the US.
Salt Lake councilman voted against the rail, so the rail bypassed Salt Lake. Need to vote-in wiser councilman.
Chinese would finish this in 2 years. Make Hawaii look like a joke.
Yep, actually probably go around the whole island in that time, but would also probably fall apart in 2 months.
@lancew71 lol. China has reliable world class mass transit systems that have been in operation for decades. The quality in China is many times better than what is being built in Hawaii. Not even comparable
China would build it like their empty cities.
I was stationed in Hawaii for the Navy from 2011 - 2016 and would have to say, they should change their motto to the traffic jam state, so yes I think this is something that is needed. However, the amount of time they are taking to finish this makes me sick, but doesn't surprise me either. I lived close enough to Kamehameha highway to be able to watch them work on this from my balcony and the sheer amount of just sitting around they did was disgusting. I could be over egadurating, but it seemed like they would work maybe 30 minutes in an 8 hour shift? I noticed the workers would sit around and chat for hours on end getting nothing done, now whether this was because of waiting on materials or because they were encouraged by their company to do so, so that they could make more money I couldn't say. Either way, the sheer slow pace that this thing is being built, at the over budgeting shows yet another example of a government project that is struggling.
you aren't exaggerating at all, its been years and they have hardly done anything past the airport but can at least say the section near aloha stadium/pearl is running so its "successful", despite being empty almost every day
meanwhile it already has serious issues breaking down and people needing to walk all the way off already
@@fish_activity Those have happened a couple times, due to automated safety systems stopping the trains where the train cannot connect to the third rail system. They are rare occurrences and are not serious issues that shouldn't be used to damper the fact that the network as a whole has a ~99.4% on time rate (with "on time" being considered within 10 seconds of schedule)
I live in Kapolei and work in Pearl City. Since the traffic is so bad I have to leave 1 hour to travel 7 miles down H1 heading east towards Honolulu in the morning. The only riders I know use it are people who used the bus before. They never had cars to begin with.
The Kapolei station was initially suppose to go all the way to the Ka Makana mall but the rail abruptly stops because they were hitting water with the pilings.
It’s been very disruptive during the construction of the first phase. I see and travel along side it everyday I work.
At that time remember where the Kapolei station is located, they were allowed to build w/o a fully executed sale price agreed to. They built a** backwards to be able to use the sunk cost fallacy saying we've come this far, we can't stop now. Comedian Tumua even jokes about them not running past Kapolei into Nanakuli and Waianae due to perceptions of the people.
I was surprised that you used a picture of Santiago's Metro L5 to showcase the elevated option. Thank you for that!
2:59 America will do anything but build a metro💀💀💀
You should make a video about the Newcastle Australia and all the big construction projects that are happening there e.g. the airport and the new container port
This is a SHAMEFULL waste of our money. Hawaii Rail also known as Hawaii Fail system biggest mistake of our islands history.....
Would love to see a dedicated video on the Eglinton LRT in Toronto. 14 years of construction and still no opening date in sight. Probably the most mismanaged and corrupt transit line in the world.
5:13 only the second segment will open in 2025, the third will open 2031 and the fourth is not in the current budget so it is not known if it even will be built
11B for elevated rail is insane
Santiago, Chile is building 3 entire underground lines for less than 11B
I think this will make them more money in the long run. We didn't really even mention that tourism is a huge part of the economy. Having good transit makes it a city destination people can see more of. And that mean people will be visiting more locations and more taxes spent at businesses like hotels and restaurants. Less money spent resurfacing roads for Ubers and rental cars. Also good for carbon footprint.
The jacked up part of the Honolulu Rail is that the other 7 islands are taxed for this project.
Honolulu resident here:: incompetence seems clear, but no proof of corruption. The hotels in Waikiki decided to oppose putting transit in Waikiki unless it was underground (so as to preserve the esthetic). Since Waikiki is the most densely populated part of Oahu, and the major employment center, I don't think they will get sufficient ridership numbers without going there. I hope that when they do extend HART, they decide to go into Waikiki or it will probably be a lost opportunity and never justify its expense.
I am a local teen still living in Hawaii, Oahu and I have a great view of Skyline. But I will say this is a waste of money though I don't understand much about transportation on the ground I do know they could have done better with that $11B to strengthen our tourism or our economy.
you know its not normal to be stuck in traffic for several hours each day right?
@@AL-lh2ht Thats for basically every city in the world what makes Hawaii so special? Literally every time I look at Skyline there is like 7 people on it which shows how much it does for the community. The Bus is better than Skyline lol
@@AL-lh2ht + traffic is like unpreventable drivers slow down naturally and that goes against the topic
If completed, this "train" will transport slightly more people than a monorail at an amusement park but less efficiency. Also, it will be inoperable most of the time. Good idea and the island needs one but unfortunately it's Hawaii and well we'll just say maybe in another 25 years there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony but they'll forget the ribbon. Oh Hawaii I guess you mean well lol.
Remove 40,000 cars off the road? If you take 5000 cars off the road then H-1 becomes a viable option. My guess is that if the rail shaves off 30 minutes of a 90 minute commute then people will stay in their cars. The question is how many cars have to leave for H-1 and the rail to reach an equalibriam. 5000? 10000? It ain't 40000.
The 2nd city only focusing on housing not building a 2nd city like it planned, so majority still need to commute the heavy congestion of H1.
According to the rail’s final EIS, table 3-12, the rail will remove 48,200 cars from the road in 2030. It’s also worth noting that their estimate of traffic in 2030 is 2,815,800 without rail, 2,767,600 with, hence the 48,200 improvement. That works out to 1.7%, or roughly one out of every 59 cars. Probably not even noticeable
Of course the rail was supposed to be completed to Ala Moana in January of 2020 and they’re currently 11 years behind schedule. They’ve also shortened the route by two stations and 1.2 miles, ending it at the imaginary “civic center,” so that 48,200 will undoubtedly be lower.
From it's inception, the designers never fully addressed how the "scale" or size of the
project would affect the local community. We are talking about an island of about 600
square miles with much of it mountainous. It is destroying the natural beauty of our island.
I wish you wouldn't cast the technology as some sort of revolutionary idea, just because it's the first system in the USA. It's pretty much standard all over the world for high capacity transit now. Vancouver has been using it for Skytrain since the 80s, and it's incredibly efficient and well used, because it goes where people need to be. This line looks like it was built backwards, with the lowest density areas done first. The existing stations are also classic North American car-oriented thinking - surrounded by parking lots and freeways. It makes no sense. No one wants to walk to the interstate to catch the train, and people without cars don't want to walk through a massive parking lot to get to the station. Going from the airport to downtown is what will start to drive ridership to the level people expect. Looking at the map it's obvious they already need to plan an extension into Waikiki, an up to the University. Looks like a good project to build, poorly planned and executed.
The mistake was starting in the area least busy first. While more expensive initially, starting in the city then going west would already have a population center that could use the service more often than what it is now.
They did this because it was the first part they were allowed to start construction.
They did this because they needed a place to build a railyard, and the areas they started are being developed, so those communities could be built around the Skyline stations instead of the other way around.
I think it'll be worth it in the long run. Right now though... not really doing anything.
Do make some videos on Indian Metros - Like Delhi or Bengaluru. Some innovative initiatives are there
The Little Andaman project is not a sustainable initiative compared to the second project located in Vizhinjam in Kerala. The Vizhinjam project is strategically positioned near an international trade route, making it a better choice for trade purposes. While the Little Andaman project raises significant environmental concerns, the Vizhinjam project does not face such issues.
With the ongoing economic boom in India, the Vikas Bharat initiative appears more viable and economically promising. The Vizhinjam project, with its proximity to Thiruvananthapuram, promotes regional development and benefits nearby cities. This government-backed initiative strengthens the economy by facilitating mother ship connections, making it a key player in enhancing India's trade capabilities.
Moreover, the Vizhinjam project is expected to transform the region into a shipping hub for India. The first phase of this project is set to be completed by 2024, with further developments planned to attract more investment into the region. Economically, it is a more viable and sustainable option compared to the time-consuming and resource-intensive Little Andaman project.
Most people hate it but don't ride it I ride it twice everyday And I love it I get home so fast and I get to work so reliably I think it's a real boost to my day to not have to sit in traffic 1 to 2 and 1/2 hours to get home 25 mi away. They also allow me to bring my e-bike on the train so I do not have to walk to the stations It is the perfect solution to my commute and I can't wait till it reaches town so I can go shopping and get there in minutes not hours.
Tbh, I only watched this vid to see the work I built. As a resident of Oahu, I voted for the rail just to have work. Now we got rail road workers using the rail. But honestly, that’s the only use of the rail my family has seen. None of my family uses it.
Corruption and idiocy are major reasons. Doesn't take much thought to see that when a project's price tag increases ten fold from when it started there are some serious questions about those in control.
Hawaii is the definition of paving over paradise. They rebuilt Detroit on a tropical island, it's madness. Let's hope all the lead and particulate matter in the air hasn't made the people there too stupid to fix this. An automated railway is a good start!
From a person that lives here in Hawaii there problem is spending money on the wrong things couple years ago the ppl running the government had more money in there pockets. Also the rail way the pillars that are holding it up every pillar has art on in no paint art but engraved into the concrete pillar
Sometimes, “sunk costs” aren’t a fallacy. 🤷🏻♂️😄
Having lived in Oahu when this “Jolly Trolly “ was being sold to residents of a bedroom community who all thought they would get their own private lane on H1 when all the other suckers would be riding the rail to nowhere! The original cost to build was just over $5 billion, my estimate the finish cost to be over $20 billion if and when done. They a currently adding taxes to outer islands in the Hawaiian chain to fund this fiasco, don’t hold your breath!
This is easily one the greatest examples of government malfeasance ever perpetrated on the citizenry.
We have a rental that we have to pay excise tax on. It went up 0.5 percent a long time ago to pay for this project. They originally said the increase would be in place for about 4 years. Not a chance. This project is way over budget, poorly designed, managed and constructed. But luckily we live in California now. Oh wait.
Finish it
In Hawaii-it’s why build it right the first time when you can keep work on building until you retire. Like H3 10 mile freeway 30 years. It took 6-7 years to add 2 lanes to a stretch of 3 miles of Kalanianaole highway. Big part of the problem is the corruption when every level except the Federal is corrupt in your state it’s hard for the people to benefit. People rather vote in a known corrupt democrat than a unknown candidate. The dept of transportation ideal to help traffic is reduce speed limits, remove lanes, add traffic lights where not needed, add speed humps where not needed, more no right turn on red lights. There biggest innovation is an ideal many decades old of having all corner walk and don’t walk signals at busy intersections. Which means they met quota of 1 thing to improve traffic for the decade.
ah yes vote for the republican to cut basic education and utilliies.
First, the final destination has changed three times. Currently it will stop two miles short of Ala Moana center, and is said to end in Kakaako. And as a driverless system there is no one to assist passengers if there is a problem. Since the opening of a shortened finished part of the rail, the train has had problems four time during it's fifteen month run, with passenger stuck in the trains between stations, and the Fire Dept. having to rescue passengers once. And the 11 billion dollar price tag that you quoted was raised to 15 billion back in Sept. of 2024. As for the train wheels not fitting the tracks, the problem goes deeper than what you state. (This is getting frustrating. (DO YOUR HOME WORK BEFORE PUBLISHING A BUNCH OF STUFF WITH AS MANY HOLES IN IT AS THE HONOLULU TRAIN PROJECT!)
Here's how to pronounce some names:
Kapolei is Kah-po-lay
Kaka'ako is Kah-kah-ah-ko
Manoa is Mah-no-ah
Kalihi is Kah-lee-hee
Haleiwa is Ha-le-ee-vah
While most of the budget is going toward the rail, the city's other infrastructure suffers.
Resident of Oahu. The rail has been a big bust so far. Ridership of the current working segment is almost non existent.
It is picking up though, I was on it the other day coming from Aloha Stadium towards Waipahu, in the later afternoon, and I had to walk through a few cars to find a seat.
As a rider, ridership is certainly not non-existent. Over 100,000 monthly riders in fact!
Something I didn't mention is that in the environmental impact study they said the rail would remove 1% of the traffic. So the original cost of $4B which expanded to $11B and the 1% was looking at the full route including UH and Waikiki. They kept pushing that rail would lessen traffic but I can't remember them mentioning a number or percentage. Ultimately, their main argument was a lie to not improve for anyone and yet they would spend BILLIONS for zero improvements. The question would be who lined their pockets with the boondoggle?
I want to make this clear, I'm for this project but why would you start a new transit system where you have a planned route in the area with the least populated section and least amount of immediate need for transit? I would think you would want to start from the opposite direction and build a few rail stations in the section of the city that is the most densely population, next to the mall, plenty of nearby businesses, and where you see a lot of foot traffic already. It makes more sense to me that they should've started building there that way they would be generating a good amount of revenue and getting community buy-in when they start using the transit.
You did your research on pronunciations which I applaud you for. The only one you messed up is Kakaako. In Hawaiian every vowel is pronounced even when doubled, so it's not Kakako, it's Kaka ako.
Big fan
As a citizen of Honolulu Hawaii this project has been a major disaster
It’s so ridiculous this has happened to the beautiful island. Many people have already died from crashing into the pillars. I live on Oahu and the amount of congestion it’s about to cause to the downtown area the next 10 years as it’s still well behind schedule is going to be such an issue to the city. And I think the people on the other islands who will never ride it are taxed for its construction. It will cost much more than the $10b price tag.
I think they need to connect to the airport personally. They are a tourist destination after all. Sure there will be buses going there. But I would just have a directed line for it. Maybe in phase 2. Would be more simple to visit then worrying about a rental car.