New chief, rising costs will shape year for rail

In 2015, shortly before state lawmakers approved the five-year tax extension that Honolulu rail leaders said would likely be more than enough to finish the project, Mayor Kirk Caldwell pressed for more money — just in case.

“I hold my breath every time a new bid is opened,” Caldwell told the Senate Ways and Means Committee in March 2015. “I don’t want to cut it so close that, you know, we can’t come back again. And no Council is going to go and vote (to) actually raise it twice. And you definitely don’t want to go through it.”

Two years later, however, the city will be coming back again after all. The year ahead will be another momentous one for the largest public works project in state history.

New leader

Rail’s new interim executive director, Krishniah Murthy, will lead the project in 2017 after his predecessor, Dan Grabauskas, resigned in August. Caldwell will return to the state Capitol to ask for a second general excise tax surcharge extension, now that skyrocketing costs have buried the project in a new, multibillion-dollar budget hole. (Total costs could hit $9.5 billion, according to the new financial plan.)

What happens during the legislative session this year could shape the future of the island’s elevated transit line — a system that’s supposed to run across Oahu for a century — and whether it goes the full 20 miles to Ala Moana Center.

Supportive City Council

Unlike in 2015, Caldwell will be joined by the City Council, whose members unanimously passed a resolution supporting a tax extension to build the full line. But key state lawmakers have said the city will need to contribute more to the cause.

“It has to be some kind of a joint partnership between the city, the state, the federal and the private sector,” Rep. Sylvia Luke (D, Punchbowl-Pauoa-Nuuanu) said recently. Lawmakers have “yet to see anything from the city other than them coming in and demanding state funds,” she added.

Luke said the city needs to present a “realistic” plan to pay for rail’s operating expenses — estimated to be nearly $130 million in the first year based on its new financial plan — before the Legislature decides what to do. That plan, she said, can’t rely on extending the GET surcharge in perpetuity.

Moving on

Meanwhile, Oahu residents should see construction push further east past Aloha Stadium next year, approaching the airport and Middle Street. Rail’s latest construction joint venture, Shimmick/Traylor/Granite, was given notice to proceed on Dec. 1.

The firm replaces Kiewit Infrastructure West, which often clashed with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and in 2017 is expected to finish the rail guideway’s first 10 miles. The firm did not bid on rail’s latest major construction contract.

Observers will monitor whether Shimmick/Traylor/Granite can keep to their $875 million budget for rail’s next 5.2 miles and four stations. Potentially costly power line-relocation conflicts with Hawaiian Electric Co. still lie along the route there.