Financing proposals get creative for rail

It’s late in the game to fold private money into funding needed to wrap up Honolulu’s cash-strapped rail project. Still, state lawmakers and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation cannot afford to simply dismiss an analysis released Monday by the Hawaii-based social investment fund Ulupono Initiative.

The report suggests that through a “design-build-finance” model, private third parties could pay for final miles and a transit hub — and get paid back after the project is pau. Thereby, taxpayers could pay for that transit stretch when they start to benefit from it.

The model is worth mulling. But do so quickly. The analysis also found that that stopping the project while deciding how to cope with rail’s rising price tag could cost state taxpayers about $114 million a year.