That’s what the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported this morning.
Sometimes additional perspective is needed.
Here’s how the Star-Advertiser summarized the issue of cost.
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. That reduced costs from more than $12.45 billion for a 20-mile, 21-station route down to a $9.9 billion system with an 18.9-mile, 19-station line terminating at Halekauwila Street.
Nothing like saving a bit of change.
But although it sounds like progress, Honolulu’s rail remains an outrageously expensive system.
I asked one of the available AI-powered chatbots what the most expensive urban rail project has cost.
Based on my research, it looks like the BART to San Jose project, which is currently in the proposal stage, is set to be the most costly urban light rail construction project in the US at a whopping $4.7 billion. This project would extend the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system from the existing Fremont station in the East Bay to downtown San Jose, a distance of about 16 miles. The high cost is due in part to the fact that a significant portion of the rail would be underground.
So Honolulu’s 19-mile system is now expected to be twice the cost of the 16-mile San Jose BART extension, even though that system involves tunneling underground.
I then asked what Seattle’s light rail system cost.
Seattle’s light rail system, known as Sound Transit Link Light Rail, cost a total of around $3.7 billion to build. The first phase of the system, which opened in 2009, included 20 miles of track and 15 stations, and cost around $2.3 billion. Subsequent phases, which have added additional stations and miles of track, have added to the total cost. The high cost of the system is due in part to the fact that much of it runs underground or on elevated tracks, which is more expensive to build than a surface-level rail line.
We’ll be paying off the bill for Honolulu’s rail for the rest of our lives.
A gift that keeps on giving.
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I’m sure the most recent buyer of the $20+++ million apartment on top of Ala Moana Center (with three parking stalls) and his/her neighbors are going to be outraged that the HNL choo choo won’t be reaching the mall after all. This might thwart all plans for commuting to Halawa or Waipahu for fun weekend shopping trips!
Elevating the first three miles and the three stations west of Ft Weaver Rd was an act of insanity.
Wait until the rail construction reaches downtown, and you’ll see what a disaster this is. Somewhere along the route there should be a rail hall-of-shame to publicize the people that brought us this mess. Include a representation for the lazy voters who didn’t vote for Ben Cayetano to stop it.
Hall of shame? All I need to know is Mufi, Caldwell and Formby. The FACES of the disaster Railfail.
Of course with complicit, weak, self interested city councils the whole way.
Mufi was not in office when rail costs escalated. If he had been, the HART board would never have hired someone involved with Boston’s big dig over a longtime Honolulu resident with years of experience in proposed transit solutions going back to Fasi’s initial rail proposal.
And if Arnold Morgado had not strong armed RENE macho into voting against the mid 90s rail proposal where the Feds would have paid 80% and the city only 20% of the cost, we would have been riding for the past 20 years.
If there is not enough money left for a large enough Hall of Shame placque, we could just put Mufi’s name on it.
This rail line is too beautiful for the likes of us!
Inadequate planning, which leads to delays and change orders, is one of the major contributors to increased construction costs.
Selecting the lowest bidder to design and build the system was a big mistake. Ansaldo made a mess of things in so many ways which meant further delays. It would probably have been less expensive to get an entity known to build and operate good automated rail systems, and have them install it here.
And with our local administrators’ habit of repeating mistakes and trying to hide their errors from the public, it just made it all so much worse.
What was needed from the start is someone who knew how to get things done properly and could surround themselves with competent leaders — who would then hire people who were highly skilled and actually cared about what they were doing.
Good, competent people aren’t cheap. But it’s more expensive to hire cheap or incompetent people and have to fix all the mistakes.
Much like how a union pension fund grows to enormous amounts of money over many decades (plus interest), so I suspect has the amount of money in Hawaii’s general fund grown. Yes, the leaders always complain and whine that we dont have enough money for teachers raises etc etc. To me, it’s all just a game and a matter of how you move money around and how you adjust the numbers. Based on the incredible amount of tourists Hawaii has had and continues to have, the State must be raking in incredible sums of money in the form of taxes. But, our leaders would never want us to know this. It would not benefit them in any way.
With unions, we have seen again and again how some union leaders will see such enormous amounts of UNUSED cash and cannot help themselves but to steal that money. There’s just so much!
I think that over time, once the powers that be saw how much excess funds Hawai’i had they needed to find a LEGAL way to take abe use that money.
Hence, the money-sucking “light rail” system was born. This is just my opinion.
I’m wondering what billionaires will own Oahu when it goes bankrupt from this boondoggle? How very tragic the incompetence! Please stop it before Chinatown!
Honolulu and the State of Hawaii are much like other places now reckoning with unsustainable car-centric design. We taxpayers subsidize roadways and parking which does not pay for itself. We allow our citizens to bear the real harms of injuries and deaths from cars. Our citizens who already pay a premium for housing have the added costs of car payments, fuel, insurance, and parking. The vast road network for Oahu will require billions to improve to address climate change impacts and perpetual maintenance. Our tax dollars support a broken scheme of constant environmental pollution from exhaust, asphalt, and tire fibers but yeah, let’s blame our troubles on the ONE THING we are building that is climate resilient and a public good. Elevated rail is expensive and also necessary. Could have, but did not, build it sooner when it would have cost less.
Tell that to the communities of Waimanalo, Hawaii Kai, Kailua, Kaneohe, Kahuku, Waianae, Nanakuli, Wahiawa, etc etc etc that have been arm twisted into paying into a folly that will never serve them.
On the other side of the ledger, rail (and the associated transit-oriented development) is supposed encourage residential developments along the rail corridor, and lessen the development pressures in more rural parts of Oahu. That’s a plus worth paying for if you want to keep the country country.
And yet I see NO encouraged developers building new housing along Kam/Farrington Hwy in Waipahu/Pearl City and HART couldn’t even follow through with a massive parking structure at Pear Highlands for people to DRIVE many miles to in order to then park and jump on the failed choo choo.
housing that is planned got stuck in permitting, so it will EVENTUALLY get built. city needs to get its act together – it helps when reviewers actually work and are NOT taking bribes.
Taxpayers pay for public infrastructure and services as a system because we are all one county. To think otherwise is pure selfishness, especially since rural places are heavily subsidized. People who live in Haula require the most roads for connected travel and we all paid for it and continue to pay for maintenance. When the coastal road falls into the ocean, all of us on the island will pay the billions to build a new road. Kailua and Kaneohe have the sewer tunnel for its waste that we all paid/pay for. Highways, water service, police/fire, parks are all funded as part of our collective responsibilities to each other now and into the future. If the oil and auto industries had been scrutinized the same way transit and alternative transportation services are, maybe we would actually have built a more affordable Oahu with less sprawl.