Judgment day is coming this year for the train, the telescope and the governor.

The Federal Transit Administration will decide in 2018 whether a controversial new financing plan for Honolulu’s $9 billion rail line is backed by enough money to actually complete the troubled project, which will soon enter its most challenging construction phase through the city center.

This will also be a year of reckoning for the Thirty Meter Telescope, which has been stalled since 2015 when litigation and protests on Mauna Kea blocked construction of the $1.4 billion stargazing project.

And Gov. David Ige will face one of the greatest political challenges of his career as he seeks re-election to a second term. Ige is being opposed by fellow Democrat and U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a formidable and widely known politician who was the first woman to become president of the state Senate.

Rail costs could climb

The escalating cost of the city’s 20-mile rail line forced the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation to produce a financial “recovery plan” for rail in September, but it isn’t certain yet whether the new financial plan will pass muster with the Federal Transit Administration.

HART Executive Director Andrew Robbins said HART expects to win FTA approval by July, and “we’re on target with them.”

The FTA’s opinion matters — a lot — because the federal government pledged $1.55 billion to help fund the rail project. The city has received about $800 million of that federal money so far, but FTA does not plan to release any of the remaining $750 million until the city demonstrates it has a viable recovery plan.

One possible concern is a report by an outside consultant overseeing the Honolulu project who warned in August that it is “not confident” the total cost of rail construction will remain at $8.2 billion. The latest rail cost estimate includes about $8.2 billion in construction costs, with financing costs making up the balance of the project’s $9 billion total price tag.

In an effort to curb construction costs, HART has hired Ernst & Young Infrastructure Advisers LLC to evaluate the possibility of entering into “public-private partnerships” to complete the guideway and stations along the 4.5 miles through the city center. The consultant is scheduled to report in March whether that strategy is workable.

The city has also issued a request for proposals for relocating or burying utilities along the rail route from Middle Street to Ala Moana Center, a major undertaking expected to cost about $250 million. The final price will offer more clues about the city’s ability to control costs, and that contract should be awarded in about April, Robbins said.

Rail will also receive an injection of extra funding this year. State lawmakers approved an increase in the hotel room tax for the next 13 years as part of a larger financial bailout of the rail project, and cash from that statewide tax increase will begin flowing to the project this year. The hotel tax increase is expected to raise an extra $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion for rail.

Telescope still harried

The Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Mauna Kea would be the world’s most powerful, but the project has now been stalled for nearly three years. Sponsors of the project plan to decide by April whether to continue with plans to build the TMT on a site on Mauna Kea or move it to the Canary Islands off the coast of northwestern Africa.

There are already 13 observatories on Mauna Kea, which is regarded by experts as one of the best sites in the world for modern astronomy, but the mountain is considered sacred by some Hawaiians. Critics of TMT have described the project as “desecration.”

When TMT construction was attempted in 2015, protesters repeatedly blocked the road to the the summit to prevent equipment from reaching the site. Dozens of protesters were arrested.

Opponents also filed a legal challenge over the project’s state conservation district use permit, and the state Supreme Court invalidated the original permit in late 2015. The state Board of Land and Natural Resources issued a new permit in September, but it now faces a new court challenge.

Lawyers on both sides are expected to file legal briefs with the Supreme Court on the new appeal in early spring, with oral arguments scheduled sometime after that. The court is also expected to hear arguments this year on a separate legal challenge to the sublease issued for the TMT.

“We remain hopeful that timely decisions will be made and that we can move forward with our preferred site on Maunakea. Time, however, is a significant factor in the process,” said TMT spokesman Scott Ishikawa.

Kea­loha Pisciotta, a protest leader and president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, is confident the Supreme Court will once again rule in the protesters’ favor. However, if the court upholds the permit and the sublease, “we will continue to plan peace but also to continue to stand for what we believe in for the mauna,” she said.

Ige told reporters in September that “we are committed to assure and protect the rights of individuals to … voice their opinion on the project. At the same time, we are prepared to assure access to those who are permitted to proceed.”

Political ambitions high

Sudden shifts at the top of the government hierarchy in Hawaii will ripple across the political landscape in 2018, starting with the marquee races for governor and lieutenant governor.

Hanabusa announced she intends to vacate a safe congressional seat representing urban Honolulu to challenge Ige, and Lt. Gov. Shan Tsutsui says he will not run for re-election. Those decisions by two top state leaders have stirred the ambitions of a whole cast of other political players who now plan to seek higher offices.

Attorney General Douglas Chin last month announced he plans to run for the urban Honolulu congressional seat, which will be his first campaign for public office.

Honolulu Councilman Ernie Martin, state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim (D, Kalihi Valley-Moanalua-Halawa) and state Rep. Kaniela Ing (D, South Maui) — all Democrats — have also announced they are running for that urban Honolulu congressional seat.

And while the position of lieutenant governor isn’t the most exciting job in state politics, it has been a critical steppingstone for some of Hawaii’s most famous politicians. That’s why a competitive field is assembling for the race to replace Tsutsui.

State Sens. Josh Green (D, Naalehu-Kailua-Kona), Jill Tokuda (D, Kailua-Kaneohe) and Will Espero (D, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) have all announced they’re running for lieutenant governor. Longtime Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho and former Board of Education member Kim Coco Iwamoto have also entered the race. All are Democrats.

Meanwhile, Republicans seeking to replace Ige are state Rep. Andria Tupola (R, Kalaeloa-Ko Olina-Maili) and retired lawyer John Carroll.

Apart from the outcomes of those races, the decisions by Tupola, Ing, Green, Tokuda and Espero to seek higher offices would each create vacancies in the state Legislature, prompting other politicians or would-be lawmakers to line up to run for the vacant seats.

Public attention will mostly focus on the high-profile races, but the long-term impact of this busy political year may be that it provides openings for a cadre of fresh candidates who win entry-level offices.