Remember 313,000? A look at HART's shifty ridership projections
by Andrew Walden
Perhaps Mayor Rick Blangiardi thinks Honolulu voters are forgetful?
In November 2024, Blangiardi was projecting 20,000 to 25,000 daily rail riders “once we get past the two [Pearl Harbor] gates and the airport.”
Flash forward to October 15, 2025, pushing for authorization to begin the process of doubling the length of the Honolulu rail system, Blangiardi is projecting daily ridership of 25,000 ‘a year from now.’
When the actual ridership came in at 11,649--counting grand opening free rides--Blangiardi said that’s still good enough to advocate for rail expansion.
(RANDOM MATH PROBLEM: 11,649 x $1M = $11.6B We could give each rider $1M cash.)
As with most scams, the numbers are shifty. They get smaller as the actuality gets closer.
A 2010 Environmental Impact Statement projects ridership of 116,300--in 2030. In 2018, Honolulu officials were projecting up to 121,600 riders per day--in 2030.
In May, 2021, HART cut its projection to 101,000.
In 2022, HART’s projection was 84,000--but only when rail reaches Kaka’ako.
The projections become even more extreme when TheBus ridership is factored in. The “DRAFT FINAL REVISED RAIL RECOVERY PLAN OCTOBER 24, 2018” cites:
… a fare modeling study, which was provided on September 19, 2018, to the City and County of Honolulu’s Rate Commission …Approximately 258,000 daily linked trips were estimated in the first full year of a combined bus and rail system. The forecast grew to 280,000 linked trips per day after ten years for the bus and rail combined system. The updated forecast estimates approximately 279,000 linked trips in the first full year and 313,000 in the tenth year. …
(RANDOM MATH PROBLEM: 313,000 / 11,649 = 26.9)
Rail ridership is 27 times lower than this most extreme projection.
Seven years later, Oahu Transit Services, as of January, 2025, reports:
“Average weekday (TheBus) ridership for the month of January 2025 is 124,719 down by 1,413 or -1% from the previous year.... Ridership is still approximately 33 percent lower than pre-pandemic level.”
Notably, the old rail ridership projections are about equal to present-day ridership on the entire bus system.
Even rail critics overestimated ridership: In a 2023 interview Panos Prevedouros indicated his old 2010 projections were “about half of what HART projected.”
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BACKGROUND: