After more than a decade, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation waits for the final portion of a $1.55-billion funding agreement that since 2014 has been held up at the federal level due to years of cost overruns and delays to the build out of the city’s rail line.

And at the HART Board of Directors meeting Thursday, rail staffers noted a related amendment to the project’s full-funding grant agreement — which the city signed in 2012 with its partner, the Federal Transit Administration, that’s tied to a remaining $744 million in federal monies — is also pending completion.

Out of that $744 million, the rail agency is expected to receive an initial payment of $125 million.

The amendment relates to HART’s “temporary reduction of the project,” which sees construction of the project only to a Civic Center station in Kakaako.

Under Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration, the city in 2022 truncated the last 1.25 miles of guideways and the planned final two stations near Ward Avenue and Ala Moana Center, reducing the project’s expenses from more than $12.45 billion for a 20-mile route and 21 stations, down to a nearly $10 billion project with an 18.9-mile, 19-station line that terminates at Halekauwila Street.

Those changes required further state and federal review, however.

Posted to the state’s Office of Planning and Sustainable Development website on Aug. 8, a public notice said an environmental re-evaluation of rail’s “Project Study Corridor” was conducted to “assess potential new, significant, or adverse impacts compared to the accepted (National Environmental Policy Act-Hawaii Environmental Policy Act), Final Environmental Impact Statement in 2011 and NEPA Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement in 2013,” the posting reads.

But the document — based on prior environmental studies — found no impacts.

“The re-evaluation indicates no new or substantially severe impacts on the environmental resources assessed in the FEIS or SFEIS that would require a supplemental analysis,” the Aug. 8 notice reads. “No significant changes in circumstances, information, or mitigation measures were identified, and the impacts of the project modifications align with those described in the FEIS and SFEIS.”

Lori Kahikina, HART’s CEO and executive director, told the board the full-funding grant agreement amendment was submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the FTA and the state of Hawaii for further study.

“Hopefully, this will be done by the first week of September; that’s on the federal side,” she said. “On the state side, we’ve worked very closely with (the) governor’s office and they’re very pleased with the package that was submitted.”

As part of the state’s review, the governor’s office — in a July 27 letter — noted no supplemental environmental impact statement was necessary for this latest “proposed project modification.”

In addition, a public comment period over this amendment will run through Sept. 7, Kahikina said.

“So, that all wraps up into the full-funding grant agreement amendment and we would like to present to the board (by) early September and obtain board approval (by) mid-September,” she said, adding a special board meeting might be scheduled for Sept. 15.

Afterward, HART staff wished to present the updated project to the Council’s Committee on Executive Matters and Legal Affairs by Sept. 17 and then to the full City Council on Oct. 4, she said. That package, she added, would be submitted to FTA once again, likely by Oct. 6.

She noted, however, that the timeline for this work may change.

At the Aug. 17 board meeting, Board member Roger Morton — the city’s Department of Transportation Services director — hoped to see the full-funding grant agreement amendment resolved before the federal fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“That usually is the urgency, at least on the Federal Transit Administration,” Morton said. “They have a lot of things that they want to close before they begin a new fiscal year; this would probably be a big one.”

Still, the rail agency expects the initial portion of the full- funding grant agreement — the $125 million — to be released later this year. To that end, during the agency’s finance committee on Aug. 3, Rick Keene, HART’s COO and deputy executive director, confirmed the likely receipt of that initial portion — or tranche — would not occur until December.

In related news, the HART board has formed a subcommittee to investigate the completion of the rail line to its initial destination of Ala Moana Station and beyond — likely to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, as originally specified in the Oahu Regional Transportation Plan.

The subcommittee is expected to release a public report of its findings following its investigation.