The city will open a two-story, roughly $5 million bus transit center in Mililani next month that is intended to provide more opportunities for people to ride public transit.

It will be O'ahu's latest major hub, part of the city's revamping of Islandwide bus services. Another transit center in Wai'anae will be completed soon, and another is planned for Wahiawa.

The city has been taking steps toward more hub-and-spoke systems that link neighborhood circulator lines with long-distance express routes. The hub-and-spoke system has already been established in Waipahu, Wai'anae and Kapolei.

But initially, the Mililani transit center won't operate like a true hub-and-spoke system, in which circulator routes and long-distance routes reach a hub at the same time, said James Burke, chief of the city's Public Transit Division.

"Hub-and-spoke systems connotes timed transfers, and we're not really doing that," he said.

Under the hub-and-spoke system at the Kapolei Transit Center, for example, circulator buses go to the Kapolei transit center every 30 minutes, and passengers can quickly board long-distance route buses.

In Mililani, buses will stop at the transit center, but the transfers won't necessarily be timed, so arriving passengers may not always be able to change to another bus immediately.

The city plans to add one bus to circulate hourly through Mililani and Mililani Mauka soon after the transit center opens in mid-August, Burke said. There are some buses that run through parts of Mililani and Mililani Mauka as part of larger routes, but there are currently no community circulator buses. It will take the new circulator bus an hour to make a full circuit, but it will stop at the transit center every half-hour, Burke said.

Some bus riders say the new center is a waste of money unless the city does more than add a once-hourly circulator bus.

"I don't think a once-an-hour circulator is going to make a difference to most people because it has the potential for adding an hour to a trip that's already fairly long," said Mililani resident and bus rider Jessie Weinberger. "Unless there are frequent circulating buses ... (the transit center) is just going to be a very fancy bus stop."

Burke said the city hopes to improve the system in the future. The goal is for the Mililani facility to eventually operate with timed transfers, he said.

CENTER STATS

Mililani's 37,000-square-foot transit center, on Mehe'ula Parkway, will include a passenger service building with 10 bus bays and public restrooms. There will be six "waiting shelters" with a total of 72 concrete stools.

The center was built over a parking area with about 35 spaces for Mililani Town Center employees. The lower level has an 800-square-foot community conference room. The facility includes an elevator from the main level to the lower level.

A few existing bus stops at or near the transit center may be eliminated, Burke said.

Some residents have reservations about bus services and the transit center, including the fact that — despite being built over an existing parking area — the center is not meant to operate as a Park and Ride station. Riders may be dropped off at the lower level, city officials said.

Mililani residents and bus riders Weinberger and David Bremer — who also serve on the Mililani/Waipi'o/Melemanu Neighborhood Board — are not convinced the transit center will make much of a difference.

Another problem is "there's no place to park there," said Weinberger, who rides the bus to the University of Hawai'i and Downtown Honolulu.

Bremer, who catches the bus through Kipapa Gulch to Waipi'o and bikes the rest of the way to work at Tripler Army Medical Center, was also skeptical.

"I think it's a big waste of money because they don't have enough buses going to make it worthwhile," he said. More buses are needed, particularly in the afternoon, he said.

CONCERNS RECOGNIZED

Burke acknowledged the complaints. "I know that the communities are changing because they have a higher density ... and it's hard to gauge how much service to bring out there," he said. "We're erring on the side of caution."

Officials said the city will evaluate ridership as well as community requests for services and make adjustments. Some changes are contingent on more funding.

The city plans to add a link to a route that goes down Kamehameha Highway toward Waipahu either late this year or within the first half of next year.

It's unclear how popular an hourly circulator bus will be.

A "Mililani Trolley" van service, which runs routes through Mililani and Mililani Mauka every hour from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week, averages about 100 passengers a day, said a Castle & Cooke representative. That's down from about 200 passengers daily last year.

Passengers are charged a fare for the service, which is subsidized by Castle & Cooke Homes Hawaii.

Dean Hazama, chairman of the Mililani Mauka/Launani Valley Neighborhood Board, said the board plans to meet with the city "as soon as possible" to discuss bus routes.

The transit center will be helpful in that "it will give the bus a central point to stop and collect riders," he said. "But what worries us is we haven't seen how the city plans to tie the existing routes and any new routes with this transit center."

Mililani/Waipi'o/Melemanu Neighborhood Board member Ann Freed said the transit center is a "step in the right direction" although officials should look into building a parking garage structure so it can operate more like a Park and Ride.

Hopefully the transit center will encourage more people to at least think about riding the bus more, she said.

"It's causing me to think once again about it," she said.

In the meantime, plans have been moving slowly for the Wahiawa transit center, on which construction was expected to begin this year. City officials say the main holdup is an agreement that the state and city have yet to finalize. The site is on state land adjacent to the Wahiawa Civic Center.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.