Don’t extend rail tax without more details

Gov. David Ige should veto House Bill 134, which would extend the rail general excise tax surcharge.

Taxpayers and commuters need this veto to force the city to come back next year and provide full accountability and transparency regarding the rail project.

The veto of HB 134 should be accompanied by a requirement that the city and Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) officials provide the following:

» An audit of every penny collected and spent on rail over the last eight years — who got paid, how much, and (for the first time) what services they provided.

At the end of 2007, the City Council did not ask the city for any accounting of how it spent the rail tax. No elected official has scrutinized the businesses that got paid, on issues such as whether were they properly registered and licensed properly. Here we are eight years later and nothing has changed.

» Let’s see a clear statement of facts about the rail’s projected impact on the current level of traffic congestion. City engineers have said traffic will be worse than today even with rail.

Here is what the HART website says in its rail facts: "Is rail transit going to make a difference in traffic congestions? If you know what traffic is like when UH and private schools are out for the summer, you have an idea of the difference rail will make."

This is a misleading statement, one that cannot be true given what we now know about the number of homes that are already permitted to be built in West Oahu.

» Let’s see a clear statement of how the city will pay for the annual operating and maintenance expenses for rail. Mayor Kirk Caldwell has only recently admitted that the annual operating and maintenance of rail will be paid for with property taxes and increased bus fares.

» Let’s see a clear statement of exactly who will ride rail. The city’s engineers call for 60 percent of rail riders to come from the bus (over 30,000 per day). This is accomplished by eliminating or shortening more than 20 bus routes. The preliminary list of bus routes to be changed has been public information since 2008 — in the final environmental impact statement’s Exhibit "D" — but never discussed. Will this plan work? Will our senior and junior bus riders all make the switch to become rail riders? If the actual rail ridership turns out to be much less than advertised, the entire project will fail. This topic needs to be discussed.

» Let’s see what the city knows about the project risks. From the beginning, the city has been less than forthcoming on what it and the Federal Transit Administration know about the project risks. The public needs to be fully told about these risks.

» Let’s see a clear-headed analysis of less expensive viable alternatives, such as bus rapid transit on dedicated lanes. On the mainland, more than 15 communities have built dedicated lanes that can handle transit, carpools and other high-occupancy vehicles, electric cars, emergency vehicles and the Google driverless cars of the future. These dedicated lanes have an average speed of approximately 55 miles per hour. Rail has an average speed of approximately 28 miles per hour. We need to have a serious discussion regarding lanes or trains.

If HB 134 is vetoed and the city does manage to finalize new rail contracts this year, it will have to return to next year’s Legislature. The Legislature will have had a chance to consider the above and then will be able to make an informed decision on whether to extend the rail GET surcharge. This is exactly what should happen.