As she prepares to leave the board of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART), Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa has called for a peer review of the rail project. At this point, neither HART’s Plan A, to find funds needed to continue building to Ala Moana Center, nor Plan B, to stay within projected revenue of $6.8 billion and truncate the system in downtown Honolulu, is deemed satisfactory. Also disquieting is moving back the projected revenue service date to December 2025.
For Plan A, now estimated by HART at $7.97 billion, more than a billion dollars of new funding is required. Where will those funds come from: Another extension of the surcharge on the general excise and use tax (GET)? Additional federal funds? An increase in property taxes? Another GET surcharge beyond 21 years should not be approved; added federal support is not anticipated, especially with the feds withholding already obligated money until they see a new financial plan; and another burden on Oahu property owners is not welcome.
Plan B, with fewer stations, will not only leave ridership well below 100,000 daily boardings but also — given HART’s performance to date — is not likely to prevent the project from staying within a $6.8 billion budget.
It is more likely that “business as usual” will leave us with a price tag of $10 billion to reach Ala Moana. Terminating the project, absorbing losses, and tearing down already built guideway elements, however, would be disastrous. Neither road enhancements nor a bus rapid transit system depending on dedicated traffic lanes will provide the relief needed for long-suffering commuters from West Oahu.
Rail remains the best alternative, but the project’s history has been appalling: promises made for an open competition on the rail technology — and then broken; manipulation of voters while using taxpayer funds; campaign contributions and “cushy” jobs for politicians aimed at keeping the money flowing into developer and union pockets; and, finally, mismanagement by incompetent city administrations and HART boards resulting in shoddy workmanship requiring fixes, continuous delays, and escalating — ever escalating — costs.
Region IX of the Federal Transit Administration is not without blame. It never should have accepted an environmental impact statement that did not adequately address all types of rail technologies — as specified in its own notice of intent. It stayed silent while claims were made in the City Council more than a year before the signing of the Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) in late 2012 that the city could not change steel wheels on steel rails (SWSR) technology. The due diligence for making best use of federal taxpayers’ funds has not been followed in this “cozy” relationship.
Before whoever is the newly elected mayor of Honolulu starts looking for the best way to complete rail, the recommended peer review must be conducted. This review must not be limited to SWSR analysts, as was done with four of five members of the (so-called) expert panel in 2008.
We need a panel of objective cost, engineering and technology experts, with the latter to include a team that can define conversion from SWSR to urban magnetic levitation (maglev). A maglev system based on American technology shows promise for completing the project within the projected revenues. Conversion also would enable meeting most terms of the FFGA, an achievable goal but not one that can be met by staying with the current plan. A new HART board and some political “backbone” for maglev could lead to public acceptance of rail, system expansion and renewed federal support. Conduct the review.
Frank Genadio, of Kapolei, is a retired Air Force officer and systems analyst.
