Suit filed to stop project will be heard Thursday

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2013 AUGUST 15 CTY Cliff Slater, left, and Ben Cayetano talk about results of the hearing. Oral arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of Honolulutraffic.com v. FTA. The arguments were seen at the federal courthouse in Honolulu, Hawaii, via live video streaming. SA photo by Craig T. Kojima

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The legal wranglings over Oahu’s $5.26 billion rail transit project continue — even as construction ramps up.

On Thursday, visiting Judge A. Wallace Tashima will hold the latest hearing on the federal lawsuit looking to stop the rail project. That proceeding will look at whether Honolulu transit officials have fully complied with Tashima’s previous order to more closely weigh an alternate route that ends at the University of Hawaii instead of at Ala Moana Center.

In October, city officials announced they had completed all the additional studies needed to comply with Tashima’s order. They also publicly implored rail opponents to accept their studies, which concluded that the route to Ala Moana Center is the better alternative.

However, Honolulutraffic.com, the group that is challenging the rail project and which includes former Gov. Ben Cayetano, did object in November. In the group’s response, Honolulutraffic.com called the transit officials’ follow-up studies of the “Beretania Tunnel Alternative” to UH-Manoa “arbitrary” and “capricious.”

“I think we did a very good job of rebutting the city’s claims,” Cliff Slater, chairman of Honolulutraffic.com, said Friday. “It’s going to be interesting to see what Tashima does.”

Officials with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation say they hope Tashima will expedite his ruling on the matter.

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The project’s construction schedule could “slip” into delays if rail officials don’t get a favorable decision by roughly April, HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas said, because the order Tashima still has in place includes an injunction blocking most construction and property acquisition in the heart of Honolulu.

Tashima’s hearing will take place at 10 a.m. in U.S. District Court.

Meanwhile, rail’s challengers and its supporters continue to wait to hear back from a panel of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges on the same federal lawsuit looking to stop the project. Those judges held a hearing in August in San Francisco on the Oahu rail effort — and their ruling could ultimately make or break whether the project proceeds. A decision could come at any time.