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Maybe the best quote to sum up the latest news on the Honolulu rail project comes from Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” character, Harry Callahan.
“You’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’”
The luck that you as a Hawaii taxpayer need comes with a warning from the federal government.
The feds are watching Honolulu’s $9.2 billion rail project designed to go from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center with rapidly diminishing patience. According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s veteran government reporter, Kevin Dayton, the feds are predicting you won’t get a ticket to ride the whole route until September 2026. The luck comes because the feds are warning there is only a 65% probability that the city can make that date.
And yes, a 65% probability means that there is just a 65% chance that something will happen. Would you get on a plane with a 65% chance of landing safely, or buy insurance that had a 65% chance of paying off?
Dayton last week reported the astounding position of Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, who told the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to “cease making promises to the public of an artificial starting date of starting rail service.”
Hello, is this the same mayor who ran for office vowing to “build rail right” when the rail budget showed an estimated construction cost of $5.26 billion? Same mayor, same rail system — but new budget, $9.5 billion, eight years later. And Caldwell is demanding that the rail board “cease making promises”?
The problem is that, at its most simple, Caldwell and the city do not know who or how rail will be built through the densest, most tricky portions of urban Honolulu.
When rail construction started ballooning, HART switched plans and instead of looking for one entity to build the last segment, it would split it into a public-
private partnership. And because nothing is simple, the public-private partnership has to mesh with the still-not-figured-out plans to move the electrical and water lines along Dillingham Boulevard. Dillingham is a major downtown artery, not some long-forgotten byway — but now, some 12 years into the HART project, it is still listed under “problem,” not “solution.”
Already HART has changed the date for announcing the public-private partnership four times, Dayton reported. It was first supposed to be announced Sept. 30 of last year.
Caldwell is still trying to cap his political career by winning the governorship in 2022. Late last year he held a gubernatorial fundraiser with tickets going for between $2,000 and $4,000.
Last week when Caldwell issued his latest directive to HART, he commented that “if we don’t deliver on the promises made, what remaining trust we have is going to evaporate.”
That is the sort of realization that ends, not extends, a political career.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.
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