State lawmakers say they’re unlikely to get the briefing they want from the city rail system’s federal partners before they must decide what to do about Oahu’s cash-strapped transit project.
The holdup, state leaders say, stems from recent turnover among top officials at the Federal Transit Administration.
Nonetheless, a briefing still could happen sometime this spring before the end of the legislative session and its pivotal conference meetings, according to the House majority leader. Conference committees are where some of the session’s most critical decision-making takes place, behind closed doors.
“Although we weren’t able to meet in January, it doesn’t preclude a meeting in the future,” Rep. Scott Saiki (D, Downtown-Kakaako-McCully) said Monday. “We could still make an attempt in this session.”
In December, Saiki and his majority-leader counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Kalani English (D, East Maui-Upcountry-Molokai-Lanai), invited top FTA officials to Hawaii to clarify that agency’s position on the rail project. It now faces an approximately $3 billion shortfall to go all the way to Ala Moana Center.
At the time, Saiki gave it a 50-50 chance that the FTA would accept the invitation. The visit did not take place.
The city has a $1.55 billion funding deal with the federal agency, but it already has breached that contract by adding years of delay to rail’s scheduled completion. It would breach the deal even further if it doesn’t build the full 20-mile, 21-station route.
City and rail leaders often mention the risk of losing those federal dollars and jeopardizing funding for future projects when they advocate for another rail-tax extension. Saiki and other state lawmakers, however, say they want to hear directly from the FTA as they decide whether to extend rail’s general excise tax surcharge for a second time in three years.
Saiki said Monday that he had worked with U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz to try to arrange a briefing. However, the FTA’s acting head, Carolyn Flowers, left the agency in late January to join private firm AECOM, and its regional administrator overseeing Hawaii, Leslie Rogers, retired, making such a meeting unfeasible, Saiki said.
Schatz’s office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Bills to extend the surcharge are moving in both state chambers, and soon will head to the House’s and Senate’s money committees for what’s expected to be tougher scrutiny.
City leaders are determined to find a way to build the full project, but they’re also considering a scaled-back “Plan B” that attempts to build with the money available — and in a way the FTA deems OK. State leaders want to hear directly from the FTA on what changes it would accept.
Oahu’s rail project does not have access yet to $743.7 million of its federal funds: The FTA continues to withhold $500 million until the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation submits an acceptable recovery plan that addresses rail’s latest budget woes. An additional $243.7 million for fiscal year 2017 hasn’t been appropriated yet.
Last week the Trump administration’s new transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, put on hold some $647 million in federal funding for electrification upgrades to Caltrain, a Bay Area passenger rail service, amid calls by Republican members of California’s congressional delegation to withhold that cash, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
That project would allow Caltrain to connect to a larger high-speed rail system planned to run across the state, according to the paper.
In a statement emailed Tuesday, HART called Caltrain’s electrification issue “a totally different set of circumstances.”
“It would not be appropriate to compare or to comment on the two projects,” HART stated.
The local rail agency said that it remains in “regular contact” with the FTA and that “there has been no indication to date that funds already appropriated” through rail’s federal funding deal will be withheld if “we continue to meet the FTA’s requests to its satisfaction.”
