Many smart people predicted long ago that the rail project would become a boondoggle.

It isn’t the right fit for Hawaii — aesthetically, technologically or financially.

But prescient people like Panos Prevedouros and Ben Cayetano were vastly outspent by developers, political donors and unions, and were ultimately defeated in their campaigns to stop the rail before it got started.

So rail proceeded.

Now, however, rail seems bound to drown under its own weight.

Way over budget, beyond its original timelines and having already destroyed local communities, rail is an out-of-control monster.

Citizens’ letters plead for our politicians to “stop the rail.”

Incredibly, the sad argument for continuing rail is, “Unfortunately, we are too far along to stop now.”

Susan Lai Young’s commentary was an astute response to this mess (“Massive spending on rail transit harms honest taxpayers,” Island Voices, Oct. 29): “Someone in your newspaper should do a chronology of the scandals surrounding this very large and very white elephant. Go way back to the misrepresentations and promises of the original rail pitch … to the lobbying by special interests, to the questionable contract awards to favored donors, to the endless cost adjustments, to the ethics violations … to the suffering of those in the construction zones.”

Unfortunately, the politicians themselves will never stop their seemingly endless chicanery — toying with their donors, and our taxpayers’ money — in order to secure their sinecure in office.

Figures have now belatedly come to light regarding how much the City Council members received in campaign donations from the pro-rail and “constant construction” lobbyists.

So we can’t expect much from the politicians. Instead, it will require an enraged grassroots citizenry to finally put a stop this worsening rail mess. Like they did with homelessness, community leaders like KGMB and the Star-Advertiser need to shine a brighter light on this morass.

So, where to go from here?

Unless we want to keep paying rail’s extra 0.5 percent general excise tax surcharge forever, we have left no other viable option than to shorten the span of the rail and find a new termination point.

Alert observers have suggested concluding the rail at either the Middle Street or Aala Park areas.

Aala Park to downtown could be walkable or within shuttle service.

Perhaps stop it at Middle Street, due to the excellent availability of bus services.

Rail will inevitably run out of money and public support before it ever reaches “completion” at Ala Moana anyway — but we must plan for that reality in advance.

Obviously, the leg from downtown to Ala Moana would be the slowest, most difficult and most costly of all to build. In any construction project, details need to be fleshed out in advance to avoid change orders, halt the awarding of more “sweet deal” construction contracts, curtail unneeded purchases, avert lawsuits, etc.

A realistic revised approach to the rail project must be arrived at now in order to achieve maximum cost-containment benefits.

The talking heads at the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation threaten that any deviation from the current plan could jeopardize some federal funding. But that’s not a certainty, nor can we trust HART.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the City Council should do the right thing and look for an exit plan from the rail morass — but do politicians ever really change?

Instead, it may be time for a non-politician as our next mayor.

Ben Cayetano fought heroically against rail. Perhaps now it is time for his respected businesswoman wife Vicky Cayetano, or some other “outsider” mayoral candidate, to step in as our “rail savior” to select a new termination point for this runaway train.