The city spent more than $32,149 this year for items such as lanyards, water bottles and keiki "fun fact" booklets that promote the Honolulu rail project, according to information recently released by the new head of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.

The city spent an additional $145,000 on radio advertising designed to warn motorists about construction activities that may cause traffic tie-ups, said Daniel Grabauskas, executive director of HART.

Grabauskas disclosed the city spending on advertising and miscellaneous rail promotional products at the request of City Councilman Tom Berg.

In an April 24 letter to Berg outlining the expenses, Grabauskas said the T-shirts, water bottles and other items with the rail logo were distributed at community events, and include the rail project’s Web address to help people to obtain more information about rail.

"Upon my arrival I asked our staff to stop disseminating all HART-logo giveaways," Grabauskas wrote in the letter. "In short, there will be no coloring books, water bottles or any similar materials going forward."

Berg and other members of the City Council have questioned "coloring books" that have reportedly been used to promote rail, but Grabauskas said the "Keiki Fun Facts" sheets were actually single sheets of paper folded in half.

He said the activity sheet is used to offer youths some basic, easy-to-understand facts about the 20-mile rail line. The award-winning illustrations in the booklet were done in-house, and the sheets have been popular with adults and kids, he said.

Grabauskas added that "other transit systems have used similar tools to engage our youth."

However, "given the cost concerns raised, we will no longer be using these sheets in the future," Grabauskas wrote.

The city will continue its public outreach efforts, Grabauskas wrote. Public outreach has been a "cornerstone" of the $5.27 billion rail project since its beginnings in 2005, he said in his letter to Berg.

Longtime rail opponent Cliff Slater said he believes the use of promotional products is a signal that the project doesn’t have much to offer.

"When you get up to those kinds of marketing gimmicks, it just means you don’t have anything to sell," Slater said.