Rail

...At the top of his list of complaints: Things just aren't like they were back in the Inouye days....

...The Cato Institute has released its 14th biennial fiscal report card on the governors....

...to distinguish good public-private partnerships from bad ones, we use the same principles employed whenever we evaluate government action: cost, accountability and risk....

...Keli'i Akina and Joe Kent discuss the latest research by the Grassroot Institute on rail, vacation rentals and the unfunded liabilty of Hawaii's public pension system....

...Joint letter sent to FTA as city and HART meet all deadlines for rail project....

...For a long time, I was wondering what the authors of 07-001 were smoking....

...Bill 42 break the promise made by the full City Council in 2006 that city funds or bonds would not be used to fund the rail....

...a “blank check” for adding fees and increasing Oahu property taxes for rail construction and operations....

...FTA has exercised considerable patience in waiting for the City to identify and implement the method it would use to provide the $44 million, yet the process is still incomplete....

...Proposals responding to RFP Part 1 will be accepted up to 2:00 p.m., Hawai‘i Standard Time (HST) on December 21, 2018....

...Contact your City Council member and strongly urge them to vote NO on all these gimmicks....

...to duck budgetary limits in the short run and spread their higher costs over the long run....

...IMF provides a handy list of things HART is not doing....

...the FTA has signaled its lack of faith in the project by withholding federal funds absent a recovery plan and setting a Nov. 20 deadline for the city to come up with $44 million — the initial payment on a $214 million obligation to HART....

"...in the event of default, the Government may demand all Federal funds provided to the Grantee for the Project be returned...."

...public and private stakeholders involved in developing the Honolulu Rail Transit Project attended the event, as did a number of directors from the HART Board....

...a free public lecture on Tactical Urbanism on Wednesday, September 5 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at SALT Kaka‘ako (the Barn, 691 Auahi Street)....

...talk of “recovery plans,” new bonds and property tax dollars allocated to rail inevitably raises the spectre of new rail taxes....

...With HART repaving Kamehmeha Hwy out of its own budget, this is money that could be used to pay for rail--but HDOT refuses....

...All mail-in applications must be postmarked by July 31, 2018....

...To date, HART officials have not publicly explained why it has been recording the meetings between the auditor and HART employees....

...Applicants must submit the HART Board Application Form, along with a cover letter and resume via email by July 6, 2018 at 4:30 p.m....

... That is over 6 times the annual budget of the Honolulu C & C ....

...Fast forward two years ... Rail is nowhere near Middle Street, yet utility work past Middle Street has been authorized....

...Recently, State Auditor Les Kondo shocked the public and some Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) Board members when he charged, at a HART board meeting, that HART employees had been required to record all interviews with State Auditor personnel....

...The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 21 at 8:00 a.m. in Suite 150 of Ali'i Place in downtown Honolulu (1099 Alakea Street).  The meeting is open to the public....

...The Grassroot Institute recently obtained a letter written by HART board member John Henry Felix to HART Chairman Damien Kim in which he also urged the board to call for a forensic audit....

...Board member John Henry Felix says there might be a breach of contract with the feds....

...Oahu commuters would save $11,773 by commuting through public transportation versus driving and absorbing all of its associated costs such as gas, insurance, car maintenance, parking, depreciation, etc....

...Buried in a proposed amendment to the bill for HART’s capital improvement budget (Bill 22, CD2, FD1) is the statement....

...Kondo voices his objection to a HART policy requiring all employees participating in the audit to tape record their interviews with him. Those recordings are being given to HART management....

...In a recent hearing in the Honolulu City Council’s Budget Committee, council leaders say that they might have found a “magic bullet”....

...rail, during its 20 hours of daily operation, will use more energy per passenger-mile than is used today by one person in a gas-combustion automobile....

...Panos Prevedouros, chair of the civil and environmental engineering department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, estimates that it will cost at least $13 billion....

...Hawaii lost 1.9 percent of construction jobs between February and March....

...Clayton Hee explains in this 2-minute video....

Reading Charles Djou’s ‘Why I’m Leaving The GOP’ statement published today, one might think Djou’s decision was all about Trump.... 

...Caldwell’s plan to use $44 million in bond debt is an ill-founded, potentially illegal attempt to payoff administrative costs related to the construction of the over-budget, behind-schedule Honolulu rail system....

...Hawaiʻi has obtained federal certification of its rail transit State Safety Oversight (SSO) program....

...Caldwell wants the city to use $44 million of bond debt to pay for administrative costs related to construction of the city’s planned 20-mile rail system....

...The main reason I support a leadership change at the Council has unfortunately been lost in media reports to more sensational stories....

...More than 69 million passengers in Honolulu ride TheBus annually....

...Andrew Robbins has been a staunch advocate of using P-3 partnerships - the joining of forces from the public and private sectors - to mitigate costs and risk and to expedite construction timelines....

...HART rail is being built one segment at a time by a single builder, instead of having, say 4 builders building 5 miles each, simultaneously....

...elected officials raised taxes to pay for Honolulu County’s rail system while indicating their intention to conduct an in-depth, forensic audit of the over-budget, behind-schedule megaproject....

...The addition of the fifth lane along the Wai’anae Coast has been long overdue....

...the City doesn't really care all that much about these particular businesses or their owners....

...The administration just told New York and New Jersey they would have to fund their $13 billion Hudson Tunnel rail project on their own, backing out of an Obama-era promise to foot half the bill....

...This ‘consensus’ of disbelief is proven by the massive investment in sea-level construction of Kakaako condos and Honolulu Rail.... 

...Gov. Ige will participate in discussions with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao....