@wiliki:  Rail systems only encourage urban sprawl.  They don't prevent them from happening because all it does is make it easier for everyone in an island to go to a single place for work (Downtown Honolulu/Waikiki) which is why Kapolei is the largest piece of urban sprawl on Oahu.  As for those "Billions of dollars of investment" along the rail line, why is it that 70% of those units are priced out of reach from the average Hawaii resident and that many of them sit empty or as an AirBnB rental unit?  All this investment does is make it even less affordable for future generations to afford to even buy a condo or a home.  It's no coincidence that the number of Hawaii Residents being homeless have gone up because of these condo projects and the domino effect of rising rents in areas that used to be affordable.  Also, why aren't these developers being asked to provide money to the rail project since many of these projects wouldn't be possible if rail wasn't being built?