Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell is pressing top rail officials for more details on what’s changed in the past several months for them to declare that the project might now cost $200 million more to build and take at least another year to complete.
In a letter dated Wednesday, Caldwell asked those leaders to explain exactly what they’ve learned since May, when this year’s legislative session ended. During that session at the state Capitol, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation gave lawmakers “detailed construction budget, schedule and procurement” estimates,” he stated. Those estimates prompted state lawmakers to eventually approve a five-year extension of Oahu’s general excise tax surcharge funding the rail project.
Then last week, HART Board Chairman Don Horner and Executive Director Dan Grabauskas sent Caldwell and Council Chairman Ernie Martin an update with new estimates. The two rail leaders warned that the project’s shortfall might climb well above $1 billion and that its completion date will likely fall sometime in 2021 instead of by January 2020. Caldwell and Martin are among the island’s most powerful political players and outspoken rivals.
In his response letter, Caldwell told HART that he wants to know what’s changed. His most recent appointee to the board, former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, said Caldwell will likely have to face the Legislature early next year and brief them on the same issue.
“We are going to have to recognize that come January, when the Legislature convenes, we’re going to have to address it,” Hanabusa, also former state Senate president, said during HART’s board meeting Thursday. “I think we’d better start now. Somewhere along the line we’re going to have to have that discussion.”
On Thursday, Grabauskas noted a few new factors that he said have arisen since May. HART has new internal estimates for what it will cost to build the elevated guideway and stations along the second half of the line, he said.
Those estimates show it could cost even more to finish building than the last time HART officials increased their cost estimates, he said. However, Grabauskas said that HART can’t disclose what the new estimates are because doing so could drive up bid prices.
“The indications are they could be higher than what we looked at back in December, eight months ago,” he said. Grabauskas also said that rail could face increased costs in utility relocations.
In their update last week, Horner and Grabauskas said that their warning of potentially $200 million more in costs stems from more conservative budget estimates.
Their projection for a delay is based on numerous factors, including court and contract bid challenges, changes in how HART will package the remaining construction work, and constraints to building the project so that workers don’t further harm nearby businesses or increase traffic.
The HART board Thursday also discussed Horner and Grabauskas’ update to the mayor and the chairman, with some members saying they wished that they had more time to vet the information.
“I thought a lot of those things would be more appropriately processed through their respective committees” first, board member Ivan Lui-Kwan said Thursday. Lui-Kwan said he received a copy of their letter the day before Horner delivered it.
Caldwell’s Wednesday letter, meanwhile, asks the board to do everything it can to hold to the previous cost and schedule estimates, and to hold public workshops on the budget.
