When it comes to money and Honolulu rail, we’ve heard it all.

We listened to former Mayors Mufi Hannemann and Peter Carlisle promise repeatedly to finish the train from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center on time and within the $5.2 billion budget laid out in the original agreement with the Federal Transit Administration.

We heard former Mayor Kirk Caldwell pledge that two state bailouts totaling $4 billion would be enough to finish, but he left with costs exceeding $10 billion and the project running a decade late.

Now Mayor Rick Blangiardi says he can complete a functional system for $10 billion, but only if it ends two stops short of Ala Moana Center at Halekauwila and South streets and jettisons a Pearl Highlands parking garage key to opening the system to Central Oahu commuters.

I want to believe it’ll work. I want to credit him for trying to make lemonade out of the lemon he inherited and salvage something for our money. I want to applaud him for taking command and involving his whole administration instead of relying only on suspect representations from the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.

But I keep worrying about the money.

Blangiardi often says, “If the numbers don’t make sense, then the strategy doesn’t make sense.” On his rail recovery plan being submitted to the FTA this month, he hasn’t spelled out how the numbers make sense.

He says it’s because the FTA, from whom the city seeks $700 million in delayed federal rail funding, instructed the city not to discuss plan details until it’s reviewed in Washington.

It’s not only the public in the dark.

HART’s board had many questions that couldn’t be answered when it took up the recovery plan, but quickly approved it anyway ahead of a June 30 deadline to get the plan to the FTA.

City Council members also couldn’t get answers to many questions, but blessed the plan in a fraction of the time it would take them to approve a $50,000 bicycle path.

Key rail decisions have always been rammed through under pressure of some deadline, and questions have always been discouraged. Look where it’s gotten us.

The unanswered questions are important.

A new HART cost accounting that shaved $1 billion from projected costs was based on supposition as much as fact and had a political scent to it. The study occurred before the massive inflation we’re now experiencing.

A proposed rerouting through the Dillingham Boulevard corridor, critical to the savings, hasn’t been fully engineered or subjected to environmental and other reviews.

HART is again painting the rosiest picture where nothing goes wrong. When has that ever happened with this train wreck? HART CEO Lori Kahikina already talks about raising money to expand to Ala Moana and the University of Hawaii as if the tricky eight years ahead have already happened with no hitches.

We can only hope the FTA demands more answers than the HART board and City Council. And shares them with the taxpaying public for a change.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.