skyline

While I was in Hawaii, part of the rail system was given the green light to be used.

Kualaka'i to Hālawa, 9 stations running from the West side of Oahu (Kapolei to the Aloha Stadium in Hālawa).

If you have ridden the rail systems in Japan, Skyline is similar, but there are more differences too.

For example, not all stations have entry/exit on both sides of the stations, Pouhala, the station to go to Tanioka’s in Waipahu, does not have an entrance/exit on the Farrington Highway side, so you have to go all the way down to ground level on the mauka (mountain) side then physically cross the street to go to any of the businesses on the makai (south) side of the tracks.

(this photo is the view from Tanioka's, it would've been nice to go straight and be able to enter the station. Instead, I needed to cross the street to the right side of the photo, to enter the station)

In Japan, there are fare machines inside the wickets as well as outside of the wickets, so if you didn't have enough money on your card, you could add money to pay for your fare.

BFF pointed out, if you don’t have enough money on your HOLO card it wouldn’t let you into the station to ride in the first place.

It would've also been nice to have a little "counter" in front of the fare machine, to put down your bag of groceries/stuff, while you loaded up your card, instead of having to put your bag of groceries/stuff down onto the ground.

The Bus is not coordinated with Skyline.

I ended up waiting 20 minutes for the bus driver for this bus going to Waikiki.

Unlike other riders, I had time to spare, but another woman that was also waiting with me, ended up being late for work.

In Japan, we pay our train fares according to distance, the farther the ride the more you pay.

Also, in Japan, you pay for each way that you travel.

A Skyline/The Bus fare is $3 for 2.5 hours (no matter what distance you travel) you can go and come back on one fare in that amount of time.

During my stay in Hawaii, I rode Skyline 3 times. 

The first, when they had rides for free during the 4th of July weekend, once to Tanioka's and once to Kaka'ako.

I think that if they don't coordinate better with The Bus, more people will only continue to ride The Bus or just take their cars.

Still, I look forward to being able to use the rail stations to the airport and to town in the years to come.

Did you get a chance to ride Skyline? What did you think of it?