Hawaii has banned private cable cars, gondolas, and aerial tramways statewide after opposition to a North Shore project.
There’s one popular type of tourist attraction visitors to the Aloha State won’t be seeing in the future: cable cars.
The Hawai‘i State Legislature just banned aerial tramways and gondolas throughout the state in a measure signed by Governor Josh Green on Friday.
The law bans “private passengers or cargo ropeways” in the state, which effectively bans privately-owned and operated gondolas, cable cars, ski lifts, or aerial tramways. Publicly-owned organizations can build and operate them, but only with specific authorization from the state legislature.
Sean Quinlan, a legislator in Hawai‘i’s state House of Representatives who represents the north shore on the island of O‘ahu, introduced the measure after significant local resident opposition to a plant to build a gondola in the area. Local residents argued that the plan, which called for a gondola on the slopes of Mount Ka‘ala as part of the Kaukonahua Ranch development, would adversely impact the local landscape, and desecrate a mountain peak historically considered sacred by many Native Hawaiians.
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“I think this is a big win for local communities. This is a big win for Native Hawaiian self-determination, and I think it’s a strong message that people from lord knows where can’t come to Hawaiʻi and build lord knows what,” Representative Quinlan told Honolulu’s KHON news after the Governor signed the measure.
“We don’t want these gondolas, ski lifts taking people up the side of mountains because it’s not an appropriate use of land. It is a blight on our natural landscape and it’s an invitation for people to create more theme parks,” he added.
The island of O‘ahu is administered as the City and County of Honolulu, and the county’s Department of Planning and Permitting had issued a conditional use permit for the project in 2019 with the understanding that the gondola would be for agricultural purposes, but opponents to the project argued it was really intended for tourism.
“This ill-advised and extremely unwelcome project was presented as an agricultural accessory business, even though it was indisputably conceived as a tourist attraction and the primary use of land zoned for agriculture,” the advocacy group Keep The North Shore Country said in a statement celebrating the ruling. The group had already put resolutions in opposition before the Honolulu City Council, but the new state measure renders those resolutions moot, as a ban on such projects is now in effect statewide.
Frustrated by the development plans at Kaukonahua Ranch and other sites on the north shore of O‘ahu, area residents have been organizing protests. Residents fear overdevelopment would threaten the rural character of their community. Tourism has shown slow but steady growth on the island’s north shore, increasing traffic and crowding local beaches and the popular tourist spot Hale‘iwa Town. Residents say further development would only make the crowding worse.
There are currently no cable cars, gondolas, or funiculars operating in the state of Hawai‘i, and a statewide ban effectively puts a moratorium on any future development. The state has a long history of banning or putting significant restrictions on potential threats to the state’s fragile natural environment, including the importation of animals, flowers, plants, or soil from the continental United States.
Hawai‘i has also banned the sale of sunscreens containing the reef-harming compounds oxybenzone and octinoxate since 2021. The former territorial government also banned billboards in 1927—some three decades before Hawai‘i joined the union as the 50th state.
O‘ahu, the most populous island in the Hawaiian archipelago, also welcomes the most annual visitors—counting 5.6 million in 2025, or just under half of the state’s total visitors.