Riding rail’s roller coaster

With any luck it will end up as an elevated rail project — but at the moment, the ups and downs feel more reminiscent of a roller coaster experience. Lawsuits, political battles to stop the Honolulu mass transit line: Depending on your point of view on the thing, your spirits either plummet or rise.

The election of Kirk Caldwell puts the project on firmer footing politically, and the incline changes again. The credit rating slips for the parent company of the train builders: another mood reversal.

Now Congress (in the person of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, appropriations chairman) has received notification that the Federal Transit Administration will sign the "full funding agreement" for the $1.55 billion from Uncle Sam. By law the FTA is supposed to give such notice 30 days in advance of the final thumbs-up.

That’s pretty good news — but until everything is signed and sealed, rail supporters dare not exhale. Whew, what a ride.

Midway should be accessible to public

There’s no telling, sometimes, how bureaucrats arrive at the decisions they do, but is it really necessary for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop letting people visit the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge?

The agency is citing a $1 million budget shortfall for fiscal 2013, which started Oct. 1, as the reason for shutting down all eco-tourism to the remote atoll. But isn’t this a bit like barring people from visiting Yellowstone National Park?

Not that it’s easy to get to Midway. There were only 332 people who visited there during fiscal 2012, many of whom paid about $6,000 each for their week-long visits.

What to do? Aside from possibly changing how federal funding for atoll operations is determined, one option is to explore partnerships with nonprofits such as the National Audubon Society and other nature-oriented organizations. Surely private funding could help keep the refuge open.