More Reasons to End HART Rail at Middle Street

by Panos Prevedouros, PhD, FixOahu, September 15, 2019

In the news – “City Leaders: Plans For Rail Work Along Dillingham ‘Not Acceptable’”

My take is as follows. There are three choices.

Plan A.  Proceed as planned with terrible inconvenience for Kalihi, much more congestion for daily commuters, and financial ruin of many Kalihi stores. Also going to Costco, Home Depot and Best Buy will be a challenge with huge congestion effects on Nimitz Hwy.

Plan B.  Tiptoe around the neighborhood which will extend project delivery time and cost a lot more. This option is likely not feasible. Can't build a quarter billion of elevated infrastructure without closures and major disruptions. This will wind up being like choice A, but with a higher cost.

Plan C.  End rail at Middle Street. This is the only reasonable choice. The rail project is largely useless and it keeps generating pains and costs. Ending it at the city's Middle Street Inter-modal Center is workable.

Plan C is an imperative, in light of these two headlines.

1. Next mayor will have mountains of problems, but a mere molehill of money to pay for them. Yet, somebody has to do it. Hopefully he or she will make the hole a little smaller. (Not likely, based on past history.) I'm not interested. I was in 2008 and 2010 when the rail and homelessness holes were treatable. Now they are ever expanding craters...
2. This article relates to the fleecing of the taxpayer for the Public Private Partnership to complete the 4 miles between Middle Street and Ala Moana Center: City leaders playing hide-the-pea in rail financing scheme. "Few believe the city will complete Oahu rail to Ala Moana Center for the $9.2 billion total it projects, and we hear much speculation about the real final construction tab. $10 billion? $12 billion? $15 billion?" [David Shapiro's Volcanic Ash commentary.]