For Skyline, I don’t think you can discount all of the years of political effort to try to cancel it. All that work did was just to slow it down and make it more expensive and risky for the companies involved.
In theory, starting in West Oahu made sense because it’s cheaper to build out there, and TOD will grow the tax base to support the urban stations, but you have to actually build something for that to work.
Oh definitely, we can't discount the effects of lobbying efforts.
It very clearly should have gone from the airport to Waikiki Beach (or at the very least Ala Monana center), which would have actually taken tourist traffic off the roads. But if it did that, those tourists might not rent cars or take taxis! The rental car lobby and taxi lobby don't like that one bit.
In theory, starting in West Oahu made sense because it’s cheaper to build out there, and TOD will grow the tax base to support the urban stations, but you have to actually build something for that to work.