Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation tax revenue higher than expected

Oahu’s resurgent tourism economy added $12 million more than expected to the city’s troubled rail project in the first quarter of the year.

The University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization had forecast combined general excise and transit accommodation taxes of $55 million for the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation in the first quarter. But the actual amount was $67 million.

Although better than expected, the first-quarter revenue contributed only $12 million toward a $3 billion HART shortfall, said Lori Kahikina, HART’s interim CEO and executive director.

“I’m just hoping the economy is recovering much quicker than anticipated,” Kahikina said. “We’re heading into summer. If that line keeps going higher and higher that helps.”

The proposed 20-mile, 21-station project is scheduled to run from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center, but lacks the money to get there.

The project is currently budgeted at $12.499 billion with a shortfall of around $3 billion.

The City Council on Wednesday passed three HART-related measures, including HART’s budget and the issuance of more general obligation bonds — but not without pointed questions and comments from some Council members.

“Members, we have already floated nearly $1 billion in bonds,” said City Councilwoman Heidi Tsuneyoshi. “We can’t keep doing that.”

“I do think that we are at a crossroads, that we can and should do things differently and that the public will appreciate our stand in doing that,” Tsuneyoshi said.

HART’s approximately $3 billion deficit continues to generate calls for stopping the rail project at Middle Street, four miles short of its current completion at Ala Moana Center, the state’s largest transit hub.

But Kahikina told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday that stopping the project at Middle Street won’t work because connecting buses traveling Ewa bound cannot turn left into the planned station.

Even if they could, Kahi­kina said it doesn’t make sense to have rail riders disembark at Middle Street only to board buses that would be stuck in traffic traveling Diamond Head down Dillingham Boulevard.

“We have to get past that Dillingham corridor, but how far can we get?” Kahi^­kina said.

Andrew Kawano, director of the city’s Department of Budget and Finance, told the City Council on Wednesday that Mayor Rick Blangiardi had said earlier in the day that stopping rail at Middle Street is not an option — but perhaps another end location could be found somewhere closer to downtown.

“There’s some options in front of us, right,” Kawano said. “It could be downtown. It could be Lagoon Drive in terms of some other stopping points. But I think that’s going to be figured out soon.”

Also left unresolved is how to fix the problem of too-narrow rail train wheels and too-wide tracks at track crossings called “frogs,” which appear likely to delay HART’s delivery of the system to the city by the end of the year.

Officials with HART and Hitachi Rail continue to meet about whether it’s better to replace the rails or the frogs but cannot reach agreement, Kahikina said.

“HART’s initial research shows that it’s faster to do the wheels but Hitachi is saying their manufacturer of the wheels can’t get the blanks to make the wheels,” Kahikina said. “We’re not in agreement there.”

“There’s not a deadline but we’re trying to work as quickly as we can,” Kahikina said.

The goal remains to deliver the project to the city in seven months, but Kahi­kina said, “It’s obvious that as each week goes by the reality gets further and further away.”