Shorter Honolulu rail route could avert Kakaako dispute

A new plan to stop rail construction two stations short of Ala Moana Center would eliminate the need to build a 20th station on less than 2 acres of disputed land in Kakaako projected to cost taxpayers as much as $200 million to acquire.

By October, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation already had spent $23.28 million in legal fees to two law firms in its eminent domain dispute with Texas-based Howard Hughes Corp. over the planned Kakaako Station.

Howard Hughes had no comment last week.

HART directors were informed through a series of slides in October that the dispute with Howard Hughes centers around “the value of easements for slightly less than 2 acres of land in Kakaako that are needed for the Kakaako rail station and guideway. … HHC is asserting a very large claim for alleged damages relating to the Ward Village project (HART believes HHC will seek over $200 million from taxpayers).”

Some 80 witnesses already had been deposed and a trial was scheduled for May.

“Howard Hughes had the government in a bind,” said John Hart, a Hawaii Pacific University communications professor. “Howard Hughes could ask anything they wanted for the land.”

Last week in his State of the City address, Mayor Rick Blangiardi announced a new plan to end rail construction near Circuit Court at Halekauwila and South streets in Kakaako and still seek the federal government’s final $744 million of $1.55 billion in funding for the project.

The original plan envisioned in 2012 was to fulfill a federal funding agreement to build a 20-mile, 21-station route from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center, Hawaii’s largest transit hub.

If approved by the HART board, the City Council and the Federal Transit Administration, HART’s updated June 30 “recovery plan” would require only 19 stations and 18.75 miles of track.

Construction is currently estimated to cost $11.1 billion to get to Ala Moana, with a $1.3 billion deficit.

But HART is estimated to have enough revenue to end construction 1.25 miles short at the Civic Center Station, Lori Kahikina — HART’s CEO and executive director — previously told the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser.

The new idea may make political and financial sense but does not answer the question of which — and how many — stations would maximize ridership while making financial sense, Hart said.

“Given the mayor’s surprisingly poor poll numbers, this would be an ideal situation to take command of what has been a thorny issue and come up with some sort of a solution,” Hart said. “But then, why not stop (one station shorter) at Aloha Tower/downtown and declare victory there?”

The latest rail plan has increased the volume of questions over the cost to build the system and the wisdom of ending construction in the middle of South Street.

There are bus routes half a block away makai on Ala Moana Boulevard, and the Civic Center Station would be an eighth of a mile away from the city’s busy Alapai Street bus terminal near the mauka end of South Street.

“Stopping at the Fasi building would’ve been even better,” said Dennis Egge, 82, of Salt Lake. “There’s a bus station on government land right across the street that you don’t have to pay for.”

Egge is a frequent critic of the city, state and federal governments. If the rail plan can change so dramatically, Egge said, then he would prefer to see the route go down Hotel Street, with the last station closer to the city’s Frank Fasi building and TheBus terminal on Alapai Street.

“I would like to see the route change,” Egge said.

Unionized hotel workers who live in Leeward Oahu already consider rail impractical to get to their jobs in Waikiki, said Bryant de Venecia, spokesman for UNITE HERE! Local 5.

“It’s too complicated,” de Venecia said. “It’s more of an inconvenience to take a bus to the rail and then another bus, only to have to walk a long way to get to work. Right now they can take an express bus directly from home in Ewa right to their hotels. If they could improve the (Waikiki) bus route, maybe our members would be more excited.”

The latest proposal frustrates Councilwoman Heidi Haunani Tsuneyoshi, especially after the City Council in December approved a new county transient accommodations tax of 3% — on top of the state’s current 10.25% hotel tax — based on HART’s financial projections at the time.

About 58% of the revenue from the new tax will go to the general fund, about 33% will go to rail and about 8% will go to the special fund for natural resources.

“There’s one story that this is what we need (for rail), and after the decisions are made, then things change,” Tsuneyoshi told the Star-Advertiser. “It’s a 180-degree turnaround. … I just get so worked up about it.”

If she had known that the HART plan would change so dramatically, Tsuneyoshi said that HART’s share of the new county transient accommodations tax could have gone “to so many core services. We can definitely be using that money for something else.”

Tsuneyoshi suspects that HART’s land dispute with Howard Hughes may have played a role in truncating the rail line.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a factor,” she said. “Land acquisition has been a major issue from the start. There deserves to be a fuller discussion of why that all happened, so I’m interested to hear about that.”

At the same time, like others, Tsuneyoshi questions the practicality of ending the system at Halekauwila and South streets.

“It’s not a place where you can develop a full bus terminus,” she said. “All of these things are concerning to me. There are just so many problems with planning that continue to plague this project.”

The day after Blangiardi’s rail announcement, Councilman Augie Tulba voted against two rail-related bills over HART’s operating and capital budgets.

Tulba’s “no” votes represented a statement that he wants more information on HART’s “recovery plan” and the true costs of the project.

“Enough already,” Tulba told the Star-Advertiser following his votes. “Give me some clarity. Do I want to see the project completed? Of course. I’m not against rail. I just want transparency. Be honest.”

Tulba said he’s disappointed in the new plan “because they sold the public on Ala Moana, that they had to get to Ala Moana to get the full federal funding. And now it’s downtown (Civic Center). … I just want a plan. How much is it going to cost and when can I ride it?”

He called the end of construction at Halekauwila and South streets a “major change to our city’s largest infrastructure project.”

And Tulba said he also believes that the idea to stop one station short of the Kakaako Station was driven, in part, by HART’s ongoing land dispute with Howard Hughes.

“I know that’s probably one of the reasons,” Tulba said. “They (Howard Hughes) are expecting rail to come through there.”