Rail work continues with tests for station at airport

Even amid all of rail’s financial uncertainty, project officials are touting the work that continues to proceed farther east toward town.

Local media members watched Friday as crews with Shimmick Traylor Granite, the contractor that’s handling the bulk of the rail work from Aloha Stadium to Middle Street, lowered a 100-foot-tall steel rebar cage down a shaft in the middle of Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

It was part of a test to ensure the soil there can support rail columns and the airport station as designed, explained Rusty Lucido, STG’s foundation manager. The firm expects to do at least two more such load tests this summer along that 5-mile stretch, he added.

STG secured an $875 million contract last year from the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to build rail’s elevated guideway and four stations to Middle Street. It’s the last major contract awarded to build rail, as the city struggles to make up an approximately $3 billion deficit, including financing, to finish the 20-mile, 21-station system all the way to Ala Moana Center.

Kiewit Infrastructure West, which is building the rail guideway from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, did not bid on the contract covering Aloha Stadium to Middle Street. Kiewit and HART have often clashed over change orders and unforeseen costs, and one former Kiewit consultant said last year that the firm was on course to lose at least $100 million on the rail work.

So far STG has had no problems working with HART, STG spokeswoman Laurie Simmons said Friday. The firm is expected to be building rail to Middle Street until at least 2021.