RAIL ROUTE HONOLULU PROFESSIONAL

HART is governed by a volunteer 14-member board appointed by city and state leaders. He said in a statement that he would 'prioritize increased transparency, accountability and open communications between all the stakeholders, including the taxpaying public.”Ĭouncil member Kymberly Pine, who represents the west Oahu suburbs where the rail line starts, blames some of the dysfunction on the decision to make HART an entity separate from the city. Rick Blangiardi, elected on Tuesday to be the city's new mayor, supports rail but has expressed concern about the possibility the final leg could cost $2 billion more than HART now estimates. Or perhaps all the way to Ala Moana on the edge of Waikiki but with fewer stations. That could mean going as far as downtown. He wants the city to start over and seek new bids without the private partnership, an approach he thinks will be more transparent.īoth the mayor and Robbins say one option might be to built the final 4 miles in phases, or build as much as the city can afford for now. The mayor is anxious about potentially losing $250 million in Federal Transit Administration funding which is due to lapse at the end of the year if Honolulu doesn't show it has a viable plan to build the last segment.Ĭaldwell accused HART of “playing chicken” with the federal government's deadline. He plans to make his recommendation by Nov.

RAIL ROUTE HONOLULU PROFESSIONAL

“We feel it’s our professional responsibility to to hear from the bidders, understand whether the procurement from a proposal perspective is viable and could be viable, that could lead to an award and a contract,” Robbins said. He said he didn't want to pass up this valuable information after the agency has spent the last two years working on the private partnership. HART CEO Andrew Robbins is moving forward with the project anyway, saying he wants more time to talk to the bidders to identify what's driving up costs and understand what could be done better. Mayor Kirk Caldwell said state procurement law mean the procurement officer can't disclose bid details but he believes they were far more expensive than the city can afford. The city pulled out of the joint project in August after its procurement officer saw bids submitted by prospective private sector partners. This has dramatically split the city administration and HART, a semi-autonomous city agency, who have been working on a joint project to team up with a private partner to build the final segment and operate the rail line. Related: Record voter turnout seen in HawaiiĬompounding the situation is the fear that the final 4-mile (6.4 kilometer) segment starting at Middle Street, the light industrial area, will cost far more than the $1.6 billion HART has estimated. Officials are worried the total may escalate further. The latest cost estimate for the 20-mile (32-kilometer) rail line is $9.1 billion - nearly double the $5.5 billion budgeted at the time of the project's 2011 groundbreaking. Supporters want to finish it as planned, or at least build it as far as downtown, but the way forward isn't clear and won't be easy. It’s akin to a Las Vegas train ending far short of the strip or the New York subway bypassing Manhattan. The rail line - one of the nation’s most expensive per capita - may have to end a long way from both downtown and the hotel district in a nondescript light industrial area featuring a bus depot and a highway interchange. “It’s so sad for me to see that it’s only passing by back and forth, but the public cannot use it,' Galicha said.

Yet the Waikiki hotel housekeeper may never get to ride them to work and avoid the city’s horrendous traffic jams because the city doesn’t have enough money to finish building the rail line.

WAIPAHU, Hawaii (AP) - Susan Galicha can see Honolulu’s rail cars being tested on elevated tracks just minutes from her home.

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