After much soul-searching, I have concluded it’s time for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) to stop and embrace the words of George Kanahele, who once captured the essence of our beloved islands in the phrase, “Hawaiian sense of place.”

This place is too precious to become Paradise Lost.

I’m worried about preserving what we have left of Hawaii’s sense of place.

We must not spend billions on rail merely for more convenient access to three shopping centers.

Rail must connect our people with well-paying jobs and housing. It must ease access to our centers of learning, our university campuses. It must link lush parks with our island’s crystal streams and soothing waterfalls, and it must be complemented by safe, green-lined walkways and bikeways. And if rail is to be the smooth-flowing, envy-of-the-world system we have been promised, its downtown stretch — if it is ever extended that far — has no alternative but to go underground.

To achieve rail’s promise, we must never lose sight of aloha, the spirit that is inseparable from Hawaii’s sense of place.

There is but one chance left for this dream: The Rubicon, the proverbial point of no return, is Middle Street.

Let us have a much-needed timeout now. We must stop at Middle Street; conduct an in-depth, independent forensic audit; make systemic changes in rail’s governance and management structure; revisit blatantly optimistic projections for ridership, capital, operational and maintenance costs; get on the right track; and stop hurtling toward a disastrous derailment.

Rail’s current South Shore, ocean-hugging route to Ala Moana Center will produce luxury housing for the ultrawealthy and offshore investors.

Using a Singapore-like turnaround and focusing unflinchingly on rooting out possible corruption, we must use what could well be our last chance to resolve the muddle by stopping at Middle.

We must throw over the money changers’ tables in the temple.

As with the first pilgrims in the Garden, we must now choose between the fruit of two trees. We must choose the way of grace.

We must step back from big, life-changing mistakes.

A rebid, rerouted rail project can still fulfill much of its original promise.

Citing the new University of Hawaii research on climate change, which reveals that sea level rise will eventually imperil rail’s current South Shore route, we can appeal to the federal authorities to allow us to rebid the remaining portion of the project and get it on the right track.

I call on my fellow HART board members to focus on our fiduciary responsibility to our fellow citizens — Honolulu’s voters and taxpayers — who are struggling to fund this, the largest public works project our state’s history.

We need to make things pono.

Now. Finally.

We must stop and rebid the rail project with a renewed sense of purpose — and preserve, not destroy, Hawaii’s sense of place.

Rail’s shareholders — our ohana and neighbors — deserve no less.

John Henry Felix, a former City Councilman, is a Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation board member.