With the resignation of its chief executive officer 10 days ago, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) is in a transition period. While any organizational change can be stressful, it can also provide an opportunity to recalibrate and embrace new ways.

As HART’s acting executive director, I want to work with the HART team to make this transition as positive and productive as possible in a very short period of time.

Having served on the HART board since January 2013, I certainly appreciate the complexity of this project and the never-ending challenges associated with constructing an elevated rail system through Honolulu’s urban core. It is a major task. HART has a competent and motivated team of professionals committed to this high-capacity transportation project, and the members of that team are focused, determined and dedicated.

As for HART leadership moving forward, I am convinced this project will benefit from a construction-experienced CEO who has successfully worked through similar engineering, budget and schedule challenges on other rail projects. This individual will possess the skill sets necessary to quickly earn credibility with our city and state leaders and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). To that end, I am working very closely with city, City Council and HART board leadership to bring such an experienced CEO to this project as soon as is reasonably possible.

Our federal partner in this project, the FTA, is requiring the submission of a recovery plan by the end of the year. Precisely what that means will be the subject of discussions with the agency that begins this week in San Francisco.

Although the FTA has been through the recovery plan process on other projects, this is a first for the city. As such, we expect this meeting will be an opportunity for the city to get clarification as to the process and the FTA’s expectations.

We know the FTA has limitations on aspects such as funding, route alignment and technology, in requiring that the city construct a functional transit system. What that means will be part of our San Francisco discussion.

The information we have received from the FTA to date indicates that we have three basic recovery plan options:

1) A financial recovery plan that specifies the means by which the city will secure revenue/funding for the full build-out consistent with the existing Full Funding Grant Agreement (i.e., the minimum operating segment, or MOS, from West Oahu to Ala Moana), currently estimated at around $8 billion;

2) A descoping of the project so that the city can build to budget, of which there are options but all of which require deferring stations (some options more than others), a guideway that does not reach Ala Moana and other changes;

3) A combination of Nos. 1 and 2.

Those meetings will be followed by a HART board recommendation and a City Council deliberation that will provide several opportunities to gather substantive public input. All of this requires a focused determination on completing a rail system that best serves the public.

I am focused on reestablishing credibility between the authority and mayor, City Council, the city auditor, the state Legislature, governor and the FTA — via better communication, transparency, public engagement and honesty. Part of that necessarily includes bringing in an interim and/or permanent CEO with mega-project construction experience, as mentioned above.

Despite having been part of Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s Cabinet as city transportation director, I will not be participating in any mayoral campaign activities during my tenure at HART and am committed only to fulfilling HART’s obligations to construct a fixed guideway system in accordance with the minimum operating segment.

HART’s biggest challenge remains financial, so we are looking vigorously at any and all funding mechanisms within the bounds of law.

A close second, in terms of challenges, is our need to communicate better and more effectively with the public and city and state leadership. I am focused on improving morale and resolving personnel issues within HART, and working on HART’s fiscal 2018 budget.

In all of this, we should not lose sight of the reasons the community voted for rail transit. It was, and still is, to improve our collective lives, to have a predictable transit time from home to work and back again, to lessen the escalation of congestion on our roads and freeways, and to assure greater mobility for our transit-dependent users. Restoring that vision, and restoring confidence in the project’s development, is a must.

Mike Formby is the acting executive director of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.