Honolulu rail has not been included in the Trump administration’s top 50 infrastructure projects — despite being one of the nation’s largest and most expensive transit projects.
A list obtained by the Kansas City (Mo.) Star and the News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash., offers a first glimpse at which projects might get funding if Trump follows through on his campaign promise to renew America’s crumbling highways.
The report proposes funding the projects as public-private partnerships, with half the money coming from private investment. Some congressional Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, have expressed doubts that relying heavily on private investment could tackle the nation’s infrastructure-repair needs.
The 50 projects on Trump’s list total at least $137.5 billion, and they include other major rail transit projects such as the $14 billion Second Avenue Subway expansion in New York, the $5.6 billion Purple Line light rail system in Maryland and the $3 billion Green Line extension in the Boston area.
Neither Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s office nor the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
Officials currently estimate that it could cost about $9.5 billion to build Oahu’s elevated rail system. It faces an approximately $3 billion budget shortfall and an estimated six-year delay on its full opening.
Hanabusa has previously expressed concerns that national politics might affect rail because Hawaii is such a blue (heavily Democratic) state. Sam Carnaggio, a HART project director, has said he doesn’t expect any impact to the project at all.
HART has spent about $600 million of the $1.55 billion in federal funding that’s committed to the project, the local, semiautonomous agency reports. The FTA continues to withhold another $500 million until HART submits an acceptable recovery plan that addresses rail’s latest budget woes. That plan is due April 30.
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Tribune News Service contributed to this report.
UPDATE: Clarifying the original report, Congressional aides told the McClatchy Washington Bureau on Wednesday that the project list is a working draft, and White House spokeswoman Lindsey Walters said the list is “not an official White House document.”
