Previous Projects
For more than 40 years, Honolulu politicians have attempted to construct a rail transit line. As early as 1966, then-mayor, Neal S. Blaisdell, suggested a rail line as a solution to alleviate traffic problems in Honolulu, stating: "Taken in the mass, the automobile is a noxious mechanism whose destiny in workaday urban use is to frustrate man and make dead certain that he approaches his daily occupation unhappy and inefficient."
Frank Fasi was elected to office in 1968, and started planning studies for a rail project, named Honolulu Area Rapid Transit (HART), in 1977. After Fasi lost the 1980 reelection to Eileen Anderson, President Ronald Reagan cut off funding for upcoming mass transit projects, which led Anderson to cancel HART in 1981. Fasi was reelected in 1984, and restarted the HART project two years later, but the second effort was stopped in a 1992 vote by the Honolulu City Council against the necessary tax increase.
Fasi resigned in 1994 to run for governor, with Jeremy Harris winning the special election to replace him. Harris unsuccessfully pursued a bus rapid transit project as an interim solution until he left office in 2004. His successor, Mufi Hannemann, began the Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project (HHCTCP), the island's fourth attempt to build a mass transit system operating in a dedicated right-of-way.
Read more about this topic: Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project
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