HART schemes to end talk of cutting short rail’s reach

City rail officials appear to be massaging their construction schedule to preclude the Legislature, City Council and public from any temptation to stop the financially troubled $6.57 billion project at Middle Street instead of running to Ala Moana Center.

Last year, as the Council considered a five-year rail excise tax extension to cover a $1.3 billion deficit, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation suggested accelerating the first segment, scheduled to open in 2018 between Kapolei and Aloha Stadium, to run five more miles to Middle Street.

“This configuration would connect our Westside residents to their 35,000-plus jobs at the airport and Hickam/Pearl Harbor as well as provide these residents access to the city’s largest bus hub at Middle Street,” HART Chairman Don Horner and CEO Daniel Grabauskas wrote in September.

With the full 20-mile line to Ala Moana not scheduled to open until 2022, it made sense to serve far more commuters with a longer interim route.

HART’s tune changed, however, once the tax extension was in hand and rail cost critics suggested Middle Street as a good bailout point if expenses keep escalating.

Grabauskas now says construction delays make it impractical to extend the first segment to Middle Street, so it will go only to Aloha Stadium as originally planned.

In fact, he said the Middle Street segment won’t be ready until a few months before the final Ala Moana phase, and they both will probably open at the same time in 2022.

In other words, the schedule for the Middle Street segment has slipped by four years in six months.

Problem No. 1: Four years of wasted operating expenses on a nearly useless segment to Aloha Stadium that HART admits will have “limited ridership.”

Problem No. 2: When HART runs out of money again before getting to Ala Moana — and it likely will — options will be limited to stopping with the useless Kapolei to Aloha Stadium segment or writing more blank checks to reach Ala Moana at any cost.

Gone “poof” is the option of a Middle Street compromise that gets commuters past the H-1 gridlock, feeds them into convenient buses to their final destinations and avoids the high cost, archaeological disruption and visual blight of building elevated rail through the city center.

If HART can build to Ala Moana with the money it has, as promised, that’s fine.

But after depleting a $1 billion contingency fund and incurring $1.3 billion in further overruns while building less than half the guideway, it’s highly unlikely HART can avoid more big overruns with the remaining guideway, all 21 stations and 78 of the 80 rail cars still unbuilt.

Manipulating the construction schedule to take a Middle Street pausing point off the table as a possible worst-case option is foolhardy.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.