Transcript
The funding shortfall is for an overly ambitious transit project to complete a 20-mile elevated rail line linking West Oahu with downtown Honolulu and Ala Moana Center.
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, or HART, website states it hopes the first phase of the system from Kapolei to Aloha Stadium will open in 2020 and in 2025, the entire system will be operational.
But a civil engineer in Hawaii is urging lawmakers to halt work on the incomplete project because of the cost blow-out.
Panos Prevedouros, who was involved in the first assessment committee for the rail system, says back in 2006 the projected cost was $US4.6 billion.
"Now the train is 5 years late and at least 100% over budget but we won't be expecting many people to use it as island life is complicated as living in Honolulu is so expensive and most people have two jobs or more. So they need flexible transportation - buses, private car or motorbike."
He says the price tag to complete the project has risen to $US10 billion, prompting talk of tax hikes while fearing the system will hardly improve transportation.
Retired law professor Randall Roth is a vocal opponent of the project and says for the city, rail is the least attractive solutions to traffic woes.
"That they take a step back and they look to see how much more it will cost to finish rail and then ask themselves what they could do with that money instead and would the benefit of finishing rail be greater or less than the benefit of doing something else."
Mr Prevedouros says the partially completed railway won't go to waste.
"They can only afford to do 16 out of 20 miles and that is actually the point I am making cos the stopping point is the area of middle street, a major intermodel centre. It has over 30 bus routes."
Mr Prevedouros says projections are for an extra $100 million per year for operations and for maintenance.
Randall Roth says the cost blowout is outrageous.
"Rail people had said they'd provide all the money they needed has proved woefully inadequate and two years ago the Mayor of Honolulu went to the Legislature and said we need a couple more billion dollars, please authorise these new taxes, which the Legislature did and then later he went back and said 'woops I was short by about 3 billion'."
Leaders in the state House and Senate plan to hold a special session in the coming months to try to resolve their impasse over how to fund the 32-kilometre project.
In the meantime, the city council has approved a bill to allow HART to issue bonds to keep it afloat for the rest of this year at least.
Neither HART nor the mayor of Honolulu, Kirk Caldwell made themselves available for an interview.
