Rail has once again proved to be politically toxic, claiming new casualties in the primary election Saturday. The issue fueled the ouster of pro-rail incumbent Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle and arguably contributed to Mufi Hannemann’s ruined bid for the 2nd District congressional seat.
Voters hate traffic, but public opinion never seems to solidify into a safe, reliable majority that is for or against the rail project. Even when the rail issue appears to be resolved, it isn’t.
Worse yet, rail demands enormous investments of cash and political capital, and the payoff is many years away. Even if the rail project survives this tumultuous election year and is finished on time, there will be no happy voters riding a train any time soon.
The 20-mile rail line won’t be finished until 2019, and seven years is a vast span of time in politics. Oahu motorists are stuck in traffic right now, and they are fuming.
All of that makes rail terribly dangerous for politicians, but it is impossible to avoid.
Earlier this year, laborers union lobbyist Maurice Morita complained publicly that members of the City Council were "running away from rail."
Morita, who is assistant director of Hawaii Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust, noted that recent polls showed weakening public support for the project. What to do?
William "Buzzy" Hong, former executive director of the Hawaii Building and Construction Trades Council, suggested a simple strategy to cope with reluctant Council members: "You guys go over there and twist some arms," he advised Morita.
Rail’s most prominent and powerful supporter is U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, and he can afford the risks and long-term political commitment that the project demands. But lesser political figures who get tangled in rail controversies always seem to get wounded.
Former Gov. Linda Lingle angered some of her supporters in 2005 when she allowed the critically needed excise tax surcharge to pay for rail to become law without her signature. Her decision kept the project alive.
Lingle then infuriated rail supporters in 2010 by stalling final approval of the environmental impact statement. Delaying the project after the Hannemann administration had already awarded construction contracts led to multimillion-dollar delay claims from contractors that still have to be resolved.
Rail was coiled and waiting when Gov. Neil Abercrombie took office. Abercrombie immediately signed off on the environmental impact statement, instantly angering environmentalists who said he had promised to take a long, hard look at the project before allowing it to advance.
Then there are this year’s primary election victims. Carlisle traveled to Washington, D.C., in his first week as mayor to pledge his support for rail. He cheered the project at a ceremonial groundbreaking last year and promised to "plow forward" even if the federal government were to refuse to pay for the project.
But when rail emerged as the central issue of the three-way mayor’s race this year, Carlisle was the big loser.
As mayor, Hannemann famously tried to use his starring role as rail’s leading local advocate to catapult him ahead in the race for governor in 2010, but discovered it was too divisive an issue to win him the race.
This year, Hannemann barely mentioned his part in the largest public works project in state history in his bid for Congress, but is still strongly associated with rail. Hannemann was defeated by Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic primary.
Voters remain conflicted. A 2006 focus group study on rail by SMS Research & Marketing Services showed city voters are greatly upset about traffic but skeptical that rail will solve the problem.
Each of five focus groups demanded immediate traffic relief, and West Oahu residents in particular "projected a high level of frustration and anger when discussing traffic."
Yet the study found West Oahu residents seemed less supportive of rail than others. Leeward residents worried that if the city focused on rail, West Oahu wouldn’t get any short-term traffic solutions.
They also worried traffic congestion would get even worse in the rail construction zone.
Former City Council Chairman Arnold Morgado believes the public never feels entirely comfortable with rail because voters never feel like they know the whole story.
City officials insist rail won’t exceed its $5.26 billion budget, but it appears hardly anyone believes them. A poll last month by the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now found that 84 percent of Oahu voters strongly or somewhat agreed that rail "will end up costing a lot more than is currently estimated."
Meanwhile, the city plans to increase fares in 2017 and 2023 for riders of TheBus and the new rail system, but officials say they don’t know yet how much riders will actually have to pay.
When such basic information is unavailable, the project lacks transparency, Morgado said.
"I think it’s a very shaky process for us to move forward not knowing what the true costs are," he said.
Morgado was one of five Council members who in 1992 voted down a rail project proposed by Mayor Frank Fasi’s administration. When Morgado ran for mayor in 1996, rail supporters attacked him for that vote, and Morgado lost.
This year, former Gov. Ben Cayetano deftly used the pull of anti-rail sentiment to draw together a curious alliance of Republicans, independents, environmentalists and voters of Filipino ancestry to fight the project.
Cayetano promises to stop rail if he wins in November, but more political controversy is inevitable.
The city has signed contracts, bought land, poured concrete and sunk more than $500 million into the project to date. If Cayetano stops the train, that money will have been wasted, and lawsuits will fly, rail supporters predict. And, of course, Oahu voters will still be stuck in traffic.
That suggests Cayetano could be one of rail’s next victims.
