‘Plan C’ for rail?

Hawai'i Together with Keli'i Akina, April 12, 2021

What’s next for Honolulu’s over-budget and behind-schedule rail project? Joe Uno, HART Board member, speaks in his private capacity as a citizen to host Keli‘i Akina about whether a ‘Plan C’ may help salvage the troubled project.

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‘Perfect storm’ for rail an opportunity, HART board member says

From Grassroot Institute, April 13, 2021

During Keli’i Akina‘s “Hawaii Together” program on Monday, Joe Uno of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation candidly explained why he thinks the way-behind-schedule Honolulu rail project is ready for a new direction.

Echoing a point he made recently in a commentary in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Uno urged that HART consider a “Plan C” for the rail project, especially since it has no contracts at the moment to extend the project further than its current stopping point just shy of Middle Street. 

“I think it’s a real opportunity for us to take a pause,” he said. “Right now there’s already a transit station at Middle Street. There may be opportunities there at Lagoon Drive also. … Like I said, we’re at a real inflection point on the project. It’s a perfect storm, things that just come together — the pandemic, the slowdown in the money, and the riderships.”

In terms of the HART board itself, Uno lamented that despite having 14 members, only nine can vote, yet, “The quorum is such that we count all 14 as a quorum, so a majority is seven plus one.”

“When you only have nine voting members, two members can veto anything,” he said. “That’s hard math to wrap your head around sometimes, but it became clear to me that that was really a source of dysfunction for us. Two members are basically a majority; they can veto anything, just two votes.”