The fate of the rusting Aloha Stadium weighed heavily on the minds of policymakers this week, after the Stadium Authority unveiled a new study that said the stadium will require, “at minimum,” $30 million over the next two years to remain safe and operable.

The Legislature faces difficult choices: Spend money on an old, outdated stadium. Build a new stadium somewhere. Do nothing.

The third option has already been tried, and the results speak for themselves.

The severe corrosion of parts of the facility has accelerated, the result of a less-than-diligent repair and maintenance program caused in part by funding gaps.

If the Legislature wants to ensure that the University of Hawaii’s Division I football team has “a place to play football that is not at Roosevelt High School,” as UH Regent Jeff Portnoy put it, it needs to make the hard decision to spend a lot of money — and soon.

The best option — redeveloping the Aloha Stadium site, with commercial and residential projects around a new multipurpose stadium built with private partners — will take years to complete, even if started immediately. Lawmakers are considering spending $350 million toward that effort.

In the meantime, it seems inevitable that the Legislature will have to pony up much, if not all, of that $30 million so UH and others continue to have a place to play. Perhaps money can be saved by repairing only a portion of the stadium, leaving worst sections closed. But such is the price for delaying the day of reckoning.