Lee Cataluna: Rail problems big enough to impress the big guys

Some people have been against the rail project from the very beginning.

Some people have been ardent supporters. These include weary west-side commuters, folks who make their money in big construction projects and anybody who has been mayor of the City and County of Honolulu.

And some people, maybe even most people, are in the middle — accepting the excise tax surcharge to help fund the project, gritting teeth through construction delays, sticking it out in solidarity with those west-side commuters — but increasingly feeling like chumps as the stream of disheartening news about project management and financing continues.

As the cranes and concrete pillars move closer to the airport, closer to the real ugly, expensive work of tearing through the heart of urban Honolulu, it’s pretty hard for the people in the middle to keep the faith.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal ran a story about Oahu’s rail project with the searing headline: “How a train through paradise turned into a $9 billion debacle.” The subheadline wasn’t much more encouraging: “The project has tallied one of America’s biggest transit cost overruns; a grand jury is investigating”

The piece was an overview of the project from the early days of Sen. Dan Inouye wrangling federal funding in 1991 to the recent city and state audits and federal target letters. It didn’t uncover new information, but just being reminded in concise, unemotional phrases written with the indifference of an outsider had a way of turning unease to disgust. The only thing our officials could offer in their defense was that the feds never told them they were doing anything wrong — so they just kept going.

Debacle is right.

There has been no leadership. Promises of finishing it anytime soon and anywhere close to budget used to be laughable. Now they’re insulting. The support of that middle ground has been worn away. Every day, west-siders must crawl past those big pillars and think, “If only we could have done this right we’d be riding now.”

Last week, Honolulu Star Advertiser reporter Kevin Dayton wrote about a safety stand-down ordered by a monitor for the federal government after two derailments occurred during testing inside a maintenance and storage facility. The word “derailment” covers incidents both huge and small, and what happened doesn’t sound like a big scene from an action movie. But come to find out the testing was being done by the contractor despite a lack of written safety rules and safety enforcement.

The sad thing is that this surprised no one.

In 2008, 52.6 percent of Oahu voters approved a charter amendment on the construction of rail. Though hardly a rousing show of support, it was enough for the project to break ground.

But that rush to start, that shameful lack of realistic planning, stuck us with a nightmare in which there are great reasons to keep going and even more great reasons to quit, and there is no one we trust to help make the right decision.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.