Mayor Rick Blangiardi gave as close as any city leader has come to a candid assessment of Honolulu rail finances in an appearance last week on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii.”
He said firmly that “we’re not going to stop at Middle Street,” as critics have suggested, but also made the most definitive declaration yet that the original planned terminus at Ala Moana Center is out of reach.
“Clearly … we don’t have enough money to go to Ala Moana,” he said. “My target personally is to get to the Civic Center, which is right outside of Kakaako. That’s what we’re trying to determine based on the amount of moneys that we have available to us. Can we do that?”
He said he hopes to persuade the Federal Transit Administration, which is withholding $700 million in financing because of city defaults on the original agreement, that reaching downtown would constitute “a fully functioning rail system.”
During an earlier rail financial crisis, the FTA suggested it would be satisfied if the troubled commuter line made it downtown to Aloha Tower.
Blangiardi said that even with a controversial new accounting method that reduced the cost of the project to $11.4 billion from $12.5 billion, and an infusion of funds from the new city hotel tax, rail is still $1.97 billion short of what’s needed to build to Ala Moana.
He said there’s no source of additional city revenue to cover the deficit other than raising property taxes, which he indicated he’s unwilling to do.
“All this lends itself to saying, OK, you know, what are the numbers and what makes sense?” he said. “What’s our strategy? What can we actually deliver without raising property taxes to people, and what’s acceptable to the FTA?”
He said a “big conversation” with FTA will occur in January.
Blangiardi appears to have brought order to the previously disjointed decision-making on rail with regular meetings involving himself and key Cabinet members, top officials of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, and City Council Chairman Tommy Waters.
A downtown terminus that connects to buses for commuters going farther east won’t likely please either the most ardent rail lobbyists who want Ala Moana at any cost or opponents who are locked in to ending at Middle Street.
Getting consensus on any plan is challenging given the long history of broken promises, but a workable middle ground needs to be found to stem the bleeding while giving taxpayers a functional return on an investment far greater than we signed up for.
If the mayor can show he can achieve his Civic Center rail vision with honest numbers, no more grasping at straws, no further siphoning scarce resources from other pressing public needs, he’s entitled to a fair listen.
His credibility will depend considerably on how well he can quiet the “Ala Moana or bust” noise from the powerful rail lobby, which has for so long kept us mired in a bottomless money pit.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
