Council rejects proposal seeking second rail vote

The City Council quickly disposed of a proposal for another public vote on the rail transit project Wednesday.

Council members rejected a proposed ballot measure that would have asked Oahu voters if the City Charter should be amended to prohibit the city from building the Honolulu rail transit system using steel-wheel-on-steel-rail technology.

Council members said they took the relatively rare step of killing a resolution immediately after it was introduced because they are worried another public vote could cause further delays in the project, or result in the loss of federal funding for rail transit.

The proposed City Charter amendment introduced by Councilman Tom Berg was rejected in a 7-2 vote, with only Berg and Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi voting to advance the measure.

Berg said the proposed Charter amendment was a "Hail Mary" last-ditch attempt to get the city to reconsider plans to build a steel-wheel-on-steel-rail system, which Berg called an "archaic, obsolete technology that belongs in the Smithsonian."

Berg argued that a steel-on-steel system will be too noisy and unnecessarily expensive. "This does not delay the rail. It does not kill the rail," Berg said of the proposed charter amendment. "It’s gonna save taxpayers billions of dollars, and a lot of earaches."

But Councilman Breene Harimoto said the population is exploding in West Oahu, roadways are becoming increasingly clogged, and the Council needs to pull together to move the rail project forward as planned with steel-on-steel technology.

"We can no longer afford to be divisive, we can no longer afford to just prolong the agony of revisiting over and over and over past decisions," Harimoto said.

A panel of experts convened by the city in 2008 endorsed steel-on-steel as the best technology for Hono­lulu.

The Council then voted to put the issue on the ballot in 2008, asking voters if the City Charter should be amended to allow a steel-on-steel rail system to be built. Oahu voters approved that measure.

Since then, the city has awarded contracts totaling $1.62 billion to build more than 10 miles of steel track. The first half of the rail route, from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, is scheduled for completion in 2015.

Those contracts include two of the four phases of the rail route from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, a train maintenance and storage facility in Waipahu, the manufacture of train cars and building of a train control center.

Critics of the transit project have argued there are other rail technologies that might meet the city’s needs, including rubber-tired vehicles, magnetic levitation systems, or a monorail.

A lawsuit filed this year by rail critics including former Gov. Ben Cayetano alleges that the "panel of experts" appointed by the City Council in 2008 ruled out those alternative technologies and selected steel-on-steel without considering the environmental impact.

Critics say those impacts include higher noise levels, and a larger structural footprint for steel-on-steel than technologies such as monorail.

That lawsuit filed against the city and the Federal Transit Administration contends that federal law required that the environmental impact statement evaluate "all reasonable alternatives" to the city proposal, and alleges the city rail impact statement failed to do so because it did not weigh the alternatives to steel-on-steel.

Court filings by the Federal Transit Administration deny that allegation, and lawyers for the city contend they have complied with all federal laws and regulations.

The City Council yesterday also voted to authorize an additional $250,000 to defend the city against lawsuits or procurement challenges filed in connection with the rail project.

That brings to $1 million the total amount spent or earmarked by the city for legal wrangling over bid challenges and alleged violations of environmental laws.

Scott Ishikawa,spokesman for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, said HART will repay the city the money that is being spent on legal costs.

One resolution approved by the Council yesterday authorizes an extra $150,000 or a total of up to $600,000 to pay private lawyers to defend the city and HART against two lawsuits filed over alleged violations of state or federal environmental laws.

That includes the court challenge filed by Cayetano and other rail critics.

The Council also approved a resolution authorizing an extra $100,000 or a total of up to $400,000 to pay private lawyers to represent the city in bid protests and procurement challenges filed over contracts awarded in the rail transit project.

That includes a challenge by Bombardier Transportation (Holdings) USA Inc., which has appealed the award of a contract to Ansaldo Hono­lulu JV worth up to $1.4 billion.

That contract, which has not yet received final approval from HART, would require Ansaldo Honolulu to design and build 80 rail cars for $574 million and also handle operations and maintenance for the system.