Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Transit officials outline
expanded CityExpress!
bus service

By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Star-Bulletin

City transit officials want to expand the CityExpress! bus service as part of a bus rapid-transit plan that they hope will eventually include a tram through downtown Honolulu.

The current CityExpress! bus route, also known as Route A, runs from Pearlridge Center to the University of Hawaii-Manoa at 10- to 20-minute intervals. With only limited stops, Route A is able to get passengers in and out of town in as little as half the time of regular bus service.

Transportation Director Cheryl Soon this week told the City Council Transportation Committee that her department intends to:

Start a new CountryExpress! route that would offer limited-stop service along the 15.5 miles between Makaha and Kapolei, and direct service along the 27 miles from Kapolei to Alapai Street in town.

The headway, or frequency, would be every 20 minutes. The route would cost about $1.2 million annually and is expected to reduce the travel time for the entire 42.5-mile route to an hour or 90 minutes from the current two hours.

Extend the existing Route A by about five miles through Waimalu and Pearl City to the Kunia end of Waipahu, including Leeward Community College and Waipahu High School.

Frequency would stay the same. Cost of the extension would be $900,000 annually. Travel time for the new segment would be reduced to 14 minutes from 21 minutes.

Start a new Route B that would go from the Kalihi Transit Center on Middle Street to Waikiki via School, Liliha and King-Beretania streets, and Kalakaua Avenue ending at Kapiolani Park. The route would mirror existing routes 2 and 13.

At a cost of $2.1 million annually, the estimated headway for the 7.5-mile route would be 15 minutes.

Funding to operate all three projects will be included in the city operating budget that is to be submitted by March 1. Assuming Council approval, they could be in place by July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year.

Soon said the CountryExpress! route could start a few months earlier if she can find money in the current year budget. "They're desperate for relief on the Waianae Coast," she said.

Soon said a future phase would involve expanding CityExpress! service to Central Oahu.

The CityExpress! system, part of a federally funded bus rapid-transit program being run in cities across the country, is designed to "get people used to a new bus system that gives them choices between local service and limited-stop express service," Soon said.

Route A also is being eyed for a proposed CityTram system possibly involving electric, low-floor, rubber-tired vehicles.

Soon said she has no hesitation about moving forward with the expanded service now because of the success of Route A.

Average weekday service has more than doubled from last March, when the service first began, to January, four months after Route A expanded to include Pearlridge.

Average ridership is now routinely more than 6,000 people per day, Soon said.

Council Transportation Chairman Duke Bainum said he endorses expanding CityExpress! in anticipation of a CityTram line.

"Why not build up your ridership now so that when city transit comes on line, people will be used to it and be ready to jump on board?"

---

http://www.co.honolulu.hi.us