Honolulu City Council voices support for private rail partner

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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM

Construction of the HART mass transit system continued along Kamehameha Highway on June 6 from Center Drive to the Arizona Memorial.

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The Honolulu City Council Budget Committee on Wednesday advanced a resolution urging Honolulu’s rail board to seek a private partner to help build the final segment of the 20-mile transit line.

Under a design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) model, a private-sector partner would finish the final 4.1 miles of the East Kapolei-to-Ala Moana Center rail guideway, the eight stations along the way and the Pearl Highlands Garage and Transit Center. It would then operate and maintain the finished system under a long-term agreement.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board is expected to vote next month on whether to give Executive Director Andrew Robbins the green light to solicit proposals from possible DBFOM partners.

The Budget Committee on Wednesday voted unanimously to recommend to the full Council passage of Resolution 18-139 following a brief discussion. Budget Chairman Trevor Ozawa pointed out that the Council already had moved out a resolution last year urging HART and the Caldwell administration to study a public-private partnership, or P3, model.

Council members Ann Kobayashi and Kymberly Pine said they also consider themselves P3 proponents. “I’m just glad the new leader at HART believes in (a P3 model),” Pine said. “I think the old one did not.”

Robbins told the committee that a DBFOM would make it more likely that the project could be delivered for the current price of $8.165 billion (before financing) and by December 2025 by placing the responsibility on the private partner to do so within those parameters.

“The private sector is increasingly willing to take on the long-term risks on (operation and management),” Robbins said, adding that public-private partnerships weren’t favored by U.S. transportation leaders until well into the 2000s.

During public testimony, a representative of the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association said the agency’s president, Mufi Hannemann, has supported a public-private partnership since he was Honolulu mayor.

HART already has a contract allowing Ansaldo Honolulu to manage the interim service operation, which is expected to begin in December 2020, for five years with an option for five more years. That contract would be “migrated under the P3 umbrella” in a DBFOM arrangement, Robbins said.