City Council Leaders Look To Remove Rail Critic From HART Board civilbeat.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from civilbeat.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Panos Prevedouros, University of Hawaii civil engineering professor
A vocal critic of the Honolulu rail project, UH Manoa civil engineering professor Panos Prevedouros has never held back on his opinion of the decision to build the mass transit system.
The beleaguered project, led by the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, now has an estimated price tag upwards of $12 billion and is years behind schedule. I m totally exhausted about the inability of our decision-makers to do the right thing, after all the proof they have in front of them, he said. These are crazy numbers by any standard of infrastructure delivery of project delivery.
Keli‘i Akina, head of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
The troubled Honolulu rail planned to stretch from Kapolei to Ala Moana is projected to cost $12.4 billion, more than double the original projection. The 2008 estimate was $4 billion. A bigger issue is that the rail was supposed to be partially usable by 2018 and completed by 2020. Now the latest date is 2031, 10 years from now and I think that the public is very concerned as to why the costs have skyrocketed and the delays have been huge, said Keli i Akina, president and CEO of the institute.
While the project faces funding shortfalls and delays, behind closed doors HART has been analyzing route and technological options that could help it complete the project faster and cheaper. The document from February 21 is titled City Center Guideway and Stations: Preliminary Draft Qualitative Evaluation of Potential Project Changes.
Case, Kahele seek millions for local projects in new federal earmark program kitv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kitv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Blangiardi Suggests Rail Could Stop Short Of Ala Moana - Honolulu Civil Beat
Blangiardi Suggests Rail Could Stop Short Of Ala Moana
It’s not clear how the FTA would respond to such a move. The mayor said he’ll bring it up with the agency during meetings this summer. Reading time: 4 minutes.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said Friday that his administration is weighing whether to stop building the city’s elevated rail system short of Ala Moana Center, casting more uncertainty on the future of the megaproject as it faces a new $3.6 billion dollar budget hole.
The comments indicated his administration is seriously considering presenting a plan this summer to the Federal Transit Administration that doesn’t reach Ala Moana, given the project’s myriad problems combined with slumping tax revenues, a sluggish economy and record unemployment across the state.