Kamehameha Schools, the politically influential private trust, appears to be the wild card in last-minute behind-the-scenes efforts to lower the profile of the city’s proposed rail transit system by shifting to a slightly different form of steel-on-steel rail technology.

Honolulu architects, including some in the the 12 local firms working on station designs, have taken the public lead in criticizing the size and visual impact of the fixed guideway system required by the specific type of trains chosen by Mayor Mufi Hannemann, which they say would create a massive concrete scar across the the city.

“I’m not anti-transit,” one AIA leader told me, “but I’m anti-stupid things.”

He described the stations planned along the 20-mile elevated route “gigantic aircraft carriers in the sky.”

“There are many, many stairways up and down, escalators, walkways, concourses,” he said. “It’s just unbelievable.”

They are also highly critical of Hannemann for manipulating the city’s consideration of alternative technologies to reach a politically predetermined conclusion that precluded the selection of what has become by far the most popular and widely used urban rail technology.

One prominent architect, who asked not to be named because of his business relationship with the city, said he and others have been threatened by Hannemann and key members of his administration.

“More than once I’ve been threatened that I’ll never work in this town again,” he said. “The mayor is intimidating architects to shut them up.”

Other architects point to the departures of two key professionals who had been managing aspects of the rail project for the city and its primary contractors. The pair are said to have left their jobs because of what they saw as political interference by the city in their professional decisions.

Led by the Honolulu Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the primary professional association in the industry, the architects are now reaching out to other business groups, including realtors, contractors, and others, with the message that rail doesn’t have to be as expensive or as visually intrusive as the city has proposed. In many mainland cities, trains operate at ground level in downtown areas without the huge above-ground stations that the city’s system will require.

But the city administration is moving quickly to lock in their design choice by signing contracts containing specifications that would preclude adopting a more flexible type of train that can run on smaller elevated platforms or at ground level as appropriate.

The AIA admits that the odds are against them, even if they are successfully in rallying the business community and public.

But Kamehameha Schools is the elephant in the room with enough potential political clout to tip the political balance.

In 2006, Kamehameha CEO Dee Jay Mailer was appointed by Hannemann to the city’s Transit Finance Advisory Committee, and has been supportive of rail. But in February 2009, Kamehameha submitted lengthy comments in response to the city’s draft environmental impact statement for the rail project, saying it would create a visual blight that threatens to stunt economic growth along much of its length and threaten the trust’s land values and financial future.

The Kamehameha comments, coupled with those submitted by the AIA, raise significant challenges both of substance and process.

Although Kamehameha officials have declined to publicly comment further on their efforts, they are funding ongoing work by at least one well-placed mainland transit consultant. If they choose to actively oppose the mayor’s choice of technology, even if largely out of the public’s eye, it could potentially tip the political balance.

However, others say even Kamehameha is subject to threats from the city because the land-heavy trust will need city approvals and permits at various stages for its future development projects.

Several people associated with the AIA’s effort predict rough sledding ahead if the city continues on its single-minded track and predict the project will be delayed by legal challenges.

“Look at the whole history of environmental impact statements,” one architect told me. “You’ve never had a project defeated on its merits. It’s the procedural issues where they fail, and it only takes one plaintiff. Look at the Superferry.”