The Honolulu Skyline Guide

Ride it if your day takes you along the south shore between the airport and the west side. Skyline gets you from Waikiki to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center without a car (the W Line bus to the train, then the train to Hālawa and a walk), and it links the airport, Pearlridge, the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, and the bus to Ka Makana Aliʻi from Keoneʻae station. Trains are fully automated and run on an elevated guideway for all but a short stretch, away from street traffic.

Skip it for Waikiki, which has no Skyline station. Skip it for Downtown, Chinatown and Ala Moana too, which have no station yet, and for the North Shore, the windward beaches and the east side, none of which has a Skyline station. For those days, browse the things to do in Oahu guide by region, and read whether you need to rent a car on Oahu. If you do keep a car in town, the city’s four park-and-ride lots at Keoneʻae, Honouliuli, Hālawa and Kahauiki, free to transit riders for up to 24 hours, let you leave it by a station, and our Waikiki parking guide covers what it costs to park back at your hotel.

Mind the station names: the station called Makalapa (Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam) is not the Pearl Harbor visitor stop. The city sends visitors to Hālawa, one stop west.

Get a HOLO card first. Everyone over 5 needs one to ride Skyline; the train takes no cash. Adult cards loaded with a pass are sold at the HOLO vending machines in every Skyline station (including Lelepaua at the airport) and at ABC Stores in Waikiki. ABC Stores sell only cards preloaded with an adult day pass and do not reload them; the station machines reload any HOLO card, and you can also load one online at holocard.net. Station machines sell adult passes only. The card itself costs $2. One child 5 or under rides free with each paying rider, as long as the child is not taking a seat.

Fares are the same as TheBus. Tap your card on the reader at the fare gate (it sits on your right), and tap again on the reader whenever you change between Skyline and TheBus: transfers are free for two hours from your first paid tap. The Day Cap and the 24-Hour Pass cost the same but work differently. The cap stops charging you once you have paid $7.50 that day, while the pass runs 24 hours from your first tap, so it can carry into a second morning.

Hours. Trains run from 4 AM to 10:30 PM every day, weekends and holidays included: every 10 minutes until 8:30 PM, then every 15 minutes. The last trip along the whole line leaves Kualakaʻi at 10 PM; later trips stop short, at Kalauao (Pearlridge) or Pouhala (Waipahu). For live arrivals, use the Transit app, the city’s official app since it retired DaBus 2 in April 2026. It is free on iOS and Android and covers TheBus, Skyline and Biki.

Bags, bikes and food. Each rider can bring one standard suitcase and one smaller carry-on, kept in front of or next to you, out of the aisle and off the seats; every train has luggage racks, and wide fare gates fit luggage and bikes. Bikes and e-bikes go on the racks by the train doors, and you walk them inside stations and trains. Sealed drinks and covered food are fine, open food and drinks are not, and smoking and vaping are banned on trains and within 20 feet of a station. Service animals ride; other small animals must be in a carrier. For help with a card, the HOLO helpline is (808) 768-4656, 7:30 AM to 4 PM on weekdays.

Take TheBus W Line, then change to the train at Āhua or the airport. The W Line is the city’s limited-stop bus between Waikiki and the airport’s Lelepaua station. It runs through Waikiki on Kuhio Avenue, its Waikiki end is on Kapahulu Avenue opposite Cartwright Road, and it also stops on Ala Moana Boulevard at Kahanamoku Street and at Ala Moana Center. It boards only at the stops on TheBus’s W Line stop list, so find the one nearest your hotel before you go. On TheBus’s timetable (effective May 31, 2026) it comes every 10 minutes at weekday rush hours, every 15 minutes through most of the rest of the day until 7 PM, and every 20 to 30 minutes after that.

Heading west toward Pearl Harbor, get off at the Lagoon Drive at Ualena Street stop for the Āhua station, the first Skyline stop the bus reaches. TheBus’s weekday timetable works out to about 35 minutes from the Kapahulu end, and about 40 minutes to the airport. Pay with your HOLO card on the bus, and the train ride is part of the same two-hour fare. Cash works on the W Line but buys no transfer, so you would pay again for the train. TheBus and Skyline share the same luggage rule: one standard suitcase and one smaller carry-on per rider.

• Coming back late. Skyline stops at 10:30 PM, but TheBus’s W Line timetable (effective May 31, 2026) lists weekday departures from the airport until 1:30 AM. Route 42 also serves the airport station after 10:30 PM.
• At the airport. The W Line uses a temporary stop on the ground level of Ala Onaona Street, across from the lei stands and directly across from the Lelepaua station. A permanent stop in front of the station is being built.
• Other places from Āhua. The A Line runs to Downtown and UH Mānoa, and the U Line to UH Mānoa by the H-1. For Ala Moana Center, stay on the W Line.
• The long way. Route 42 and the E (CountryExpress) also run between Waikiki and the Waipahu Transit Center at Pouhala station, but they are long suburban runs. The W Line is the fast option.

Landing at HNL and going straight to your hotel? Our Honolulu airport to Waikiki guide compares the W Line with shuttles, taxis, rideshare and rental cars.

The 13 stations are numbered west to east, the same numbers as the map at the top of this page, and each has a Hawaiian name and a place name. Every station has elevators and stairs, HOLO ticket machines and bike racks near the entrances. The meanings of the names come from HART, the agency building the line. Bus routes are from the city’s station maps, which change with each new bus schedule, so check the Transit app before you rely on one.

East Kapolei and ʻEwa

The west end of the line, through new neighborhoods on the ʻEwa plain. Two of these four stations have free park-and-ride lots.

Waipahu and Pearl City

Three stations for Waipahu, Waikele and Pearl City, including the Waipahu Transit Center and the only station at ground level.

Pearlridge and Pearl Harbor

Three stations for shopping, the stadium and swap meet, and the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center.

Airport and Kalihi

The three newest stations: the airport, the transfer to Waikiki, and the current end of the line.

As of Oct 12, 2026, from HART’s construction pages: Skyline runs 16 miles and 13 stations, and the next 3 miles are under construction. Plan on the train ending at Kalihi until City Center service starts, which HART projects for 2031, and on TheBus for anything east of it.

Segment 3, City Center. Six stations from Mokauea (Kalihi) to Kaʻākaukukui (Civic Center): Mokauea, Niuhelewai (Honolulu Community College), Kūwili (Iwilei), Hōlau (Chinatown), Kuloloia (Downtown) and Kaʻākaukukui. HART expects the first guideway span in early 2027, major construction to finish in 2030, and passenger service in 2031, and says schedules can change. Ground was broken at the Kaʻākaukukui site in August 2025, guideway column work began in October 2025, station foundations started in Chinatown in April 2026, and the Downtown utility relocation finished on July 22, 2026. Utility work on Dillingham Boulevard is expected to finish in late 2026. These six stations will have elevators and stairs instead of escalators.

Kakaʻako and Ala Moana. The original plan ran 20 miles to Ala Moana Center. HART now calls Civic Center a temporary terminus: the last two stations, Kūkuluaeʻo (Kakaʻako) and Kālia (Ala Moana Center), are not in the current funded scope, and funding, schedule and delivery plans have not been finalized, so they have no opening year. The city will decide bus connections beyond Civic Center as its operating plans develop.

Skyline is a fully automated, driverless light metro powered by a third rail, with a fleet of twenty four-car trains. The guideway is elevated for the whole route except a 0.6-mile ground-level section near Leeward Community College, which keeps trains away from street traffic, pedestrians and intersections. HART warns that automated trains can move in either direction at any time; stations have platform screen gates, and more than 1,500 security cameras watch the system. Each station is designed to reflect the community it serves, and the columns will carry embossed patterns by local architect and designer Daniel Kanekuni of WCIT Architecture, unique to each area’s ahupuaʻa (traditional land division). HART launched a $5 million transit art program for the stations in 2013.

The line took two decades to reach the airport:

• 2005 to 2010. The Legislature authorized a 0.5% General Excise Tax for transit in 2005. The City Council chose a fixed guideway in 2006 and backed a 20-mile first phase from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center in 2007. Voters confirmed steel-wheel-on-steel-rail technology in 2008, the route moved from Salt Lake to the airport in 2009, and voters created HART in 2010.
• 2011 to 2013. A ceremonial groundbreaking was held at the East Kapolei station site in February 2011. In August 2012 the State Supreme Court ruled that archaeological studies had been improperly phased, and construction stopped. That December the Federal Transit Administration signed a $1.55 billion Full Funding Grant Agreement, about 32% of the project’s estimated $5.1 billion cost at the time. Work resumed in September 2013.
• 2016 to 2021. The Legislature extended the excise tax surcharge in 2016 and again in 2017, the second time with a 1% Transient Accommodation Tax increase, to December 2030. Rail operations passed from HART to the city’s Department of Transportation Services in November 2016. The third rail was energized in September 2020 for test trains between East Kapolei and Aloha Stadium, and in December 2021 the City Council approved a 3% city transient accommodations tax for rail.
• 2022 to 2024. HART’s 2022 Recovery Plan cut the project to 18.9 miles and 19 stations, postponing the final 1.25 miles of guideway, the Kakaʻako and Ala Moana stations, and the Pearl Highlands parking garage. An amended federal grant agreement was signed in February 2024, and in April 2024 HART received $125 million, its first federal funding since 2017. The City Center design-build contract went to Tutor Perini that August.
• 2023 and 2025. The first nine stations, East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, opened on June 30, 2023. The next four, from Makalapa to Kalihi, opened on October 16, 2025, bringing the train to the airport.

That 2016 handover is why the city runs the trains while HART builds the line.