KAPOLEI — The first of five public hearings to allow residents to comment on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement regarding the planned multi-billion dollar Honolulu rail transit system ended yesterday almost before it got started.

Scheduled for two hours, the hearing began promptly at 9 a.m. in a small meeting room on the first floor at Kapolei Hale. As the first person began, a handful of other registered speakers waited for their number to be called so they could talk for their allotted three minutes.

But when hearing officer Kenneth Toru Hamayasu called for Number 6, he was told that that resident had canceled. Five others took their turns. Then, when Hamayasu called for speaker Number 12, he learned that nobody else had signed up.

With that, Hamayasu brought the hearing to a close at 9:31 a.m.

The scene was a contrast to previous transit forums held at Kapolei Hale.

In June 2006 dozens of residents packed the building to engage in a lively discussion about the city's proposed transit system. The following January a similar throng attended a celebration at which Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann signed the bill that officially set the fixed-guideway mass-transit process in motion.

Hamayasu, chief of the city's Rapid Transit Division, said he wasn't that surprised by yesterday's low turnout. There are four comment hearings to go. Otherwise, people can make formal comments through Jan. 7 in writing or online, he said.

"When people are basically supportive, you don't get a lot of turnout," added Wayne Yoshioka, director of the city's Department of Transportation Services. "This area here has been very supportive and has turned out in large numbers for past hearings."

Even as the hearing was in progress, other residents congregated in an adjacent large conference room where information panels on easels were placed around the room. City transit project team members stood by to answer questions until 11 a.m. Some visitors took time to fill out comment forms that they placed in one of two locked black boxes.

Otherwise, they could make a formal comment orally to a court reporter stationed at a table in one corner.

Most of those who spoke at the hearing were in support of rail, although more favored the Airport Alternative route over the Salt Lake Alternative route the City Council selected in early 2007.

State Rep. Sharon Har, D-40th (Royal Kunia, Makakilo, Kapolei), was there to speak as a private citizen and resident of Kapolei who is an ardent supporter of starting the rail line in Kapolei. She's opposed to a proposal to begin transit closer to Honolulu.

"With all the development we have out here in our great new city, you must have transit beginning here so that we can build 'smart growth projects,' " said Har.

Such projects incorporate transit around them as an effective way of preventing urban sprawl, which is a main concern in the island's most rapidly developing corridor, she said.

Rodlyn Brown said she, like other Wai'anae Coast residents, strongly backs the rail concept. But now she was calling on city officials to show support for area residents who desperately want an alternative route to Farrington Highway — the coast's solitary, congestion-prone, frequently shut down thoroughfare.

"We are the only location on the entire island that has no way in or out except for Farrington Highway," said Brown. "And we need to get to the train just like everybody else. ... Please, please, support our need as we will support yours."

Wai'anae Coast resident Pat Patterson voiced a dissenting view. She said she resented having her tax dollars used to pay for "slick" ads favoring a steel-on-steel rail system, and that a better, more cost-effective alternative should have been considered — such as the Phileas Magnet-Rail Super Express system.

Otherwise, she suggested, the city might simply restore the former Oahu Railway and Land Company system that once traveled from Waipahu to Hale'iwa.

"If you really want rail, why don't you restore the old OR&L all the way to Ka'ena Point and give the Wai'anae/Makaha residents access?" she said.