Honolulu’s Skyline rail system has passed its testing phase — with some lingering challenges — before Thursday’s opening of the next 5.2-mile route for public ridership that will take passengers into four new stations at Makalapa/Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Lagoon Drive and Middle Street in Kalihi, amid elevated expectations of a significant boost in ridership.

There’s also nothing less than $125 million in additional federal funding at stake for opening Segment 2, along with Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s push to increase passenger counts to 25,000 a day within a year.

In September, the city’s Department of Transportation Services, which operates both Skyline and its interconnected city bus system, reported rail ridership figures as low as 1,842 on a

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