Hawaii’s federal judges expressed security concerns nearly five years ago about the elevated rail system being near the Prince Kuhio Federal Building and nearby courthouse. Now, Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway has urged local and federal transit officials in a July 8 letter — in an echo of those rail-route objections — to consider a "more prudent and feasible route." Such a change as suggested by the judge would be overly expensive and impractical.

In a November 2008 letter to the Federal Transit Administration, Helen Gillmor, Mollway’s predecessor as chief judge, suggested that the rail’s planned route be changed to Queen, King and Beretania streets to avoid incidents similar to "terrorists’ gunfire and/or bombing such as occurred in Oklahoma City and within trains in Madrid." The present plan is for the rail line to go down Halekauwila Street through Kakaako, which Mollway remarked in a footnote to her letter "was neither prudent nor feasible, particularly with respect to still unresolved serious security risks" to the court building.

On behalf of other U.S. District judges in Hawaii, Gillmor sent a similar letter to the City Council in January 2009 and Mollway followed with a letter in May 2012. They recused themselves from presiding over the federal lawsuit against the rail project, which is assigned to District Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a member of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Despite the legal recusal, last week’s letter by Mollway, by virtue of her position, attempts to weigh against the city’s rail project. Her letter to federal transit official Ted Matley and to Dan Grabauskas, executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, was part of a public-comment process on a new draft supplemental environmental impact statement on a Beretania Street tunnel option. This letter expands on previous objections by federal judges on the rail’s route so should come as no surprise.

The original plan for the rail was proposed from Kapolei through Pearl City and along the base of the Koolau mountain range to the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus. That changed to a route from Kapolei through Salt Lake to Ala Moana Center and up to the Manoa campus; then finally, from Kapolei to near Honolulu Airport to Ala Moana, with an extension to UH-Manoa a future possibility.

Each change has been vetted via community hearings and has improved the rail route.

In her most recent letter, however, Mollway suggests that the city use an alternate route, including a Beretania Street tunnel, to UH-Manoa, which the draft environmental impact statement estimated would cost $960 million more than the $5.26 billion estimated to Ala Moana, a modest estimate. She expresses doubt that the rail line from Ala Moana to the UH-Manoa campus "will ever be built."

Longtime rail opponents former Gov. Ben Cayetano, University of Hawaii law professor Randy Roth and businessman Cliff Slater were quick to assign gravitas to Mollway’s letter, saying they will try to introduce the letter before the 9th Circuit.

Mollway, however, said she isn’t trying to affect the lawsuit or send a message to the 9th Circuit. As recused judges, she demurred, "we are not speaking in a judicial decision-making role. We are speaking in an administrative role."

Let’s leave it at that. Mollway and her judicial colleagues are free, of course, as are all members of the public, to comment on the rail draft environmental report on the Beretania tunnel option and other findings; the public-comment period ends July 22. But the letter should not be given undue weight in the legal proceedings. The current rail plan is solid and should go forward.