Mayor Mufi Hannemann and U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie yesterday said they hope the City Council will vote before year's end to formally choose rail as the mass transit mode for O'ahu.

"The council is not going to make a decision in November or December on all the development, where all the stations are, all those kinds of things," said Abercrombie. "They have to make the decision, 'Are we going to use rail transit as the alternative (form of transportation in Honolulu)?' "

Once that happens, city planners can begin to map out the logistics of a rail system.

Hannemann said he is confident that the rail choice will pass.

Hannemann hopes to break ground for the system in 2009 and open the first phase of the rail for public use in 2012. The first phase of the $3 billion system would run from somewhere in West O'ahu to downtown Honolulu.

Abercrombie and Hannemann spoke yesterday at the city's Transit Symposium 2006 at the Hawai'i Convention Center. The symposium featured five transit exhibits and a panel of transit experts from the Mainland, Canada and Japan.

The symposium sought to make public what city officials learned during a trip to the Mainland last month to study various transit systems.

Hannemann also hoped that the event would increase public support for the proposed rail system.