Sunday, August 17, 2014

The Incompetence of HART. Cheapest Bid for 9 Stations Comes 75% Over Budget!

Here is good coverage of the situation in the Hawaii Reporter.

Some additional comments:
  • The pain in cost overruns and construction congestion will be severe. The only thing we can do now is kick the people responsible for rail out of office.  Six are out already (Mufi, Peter, Linda, Neil, Stanley, Rida*)
  • These nine stations are the relatively easy ones to build... A couple of them are in empty fields. Imagine the cost of remaining 12 stations in Kalihi, downtown, Kakaako near the water...
  • The next traffic calamity by the elevated rail is the passing of the guideway over the H1/H2 merge.
  • After that is the partial loss of Kamehameha Hwy. in Aiea for a year or so.
  • After that is the debilitating impacts at and near the airport (Hawaii's tourism economy lifeline.) 
 So far we've been talking about politics, trials, concrete poles, contracts and money. We have not seen much of the rail's traffic congestion. The real suffering should start early in 2015.

Recall that the geniuses at HART purchased miles of steel rails in 2010 and since then they rot unused at Barbers Point Harbor.  These rails won't be put in service for about ten years!



(*) ex mayor Mufi Hannemann, ex mayor Peter Carlisle,  ex governor Linda Lingle, ex governor Neil Abercrombie, ex council member Stanley Chang, ex representative Rida Cabanilla.)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

You are so right . This cost overrun was not expected though Kakaako development has been front page. The contractors there will be making to much business to handle the rail too. Imagine 6 towers been built at the same time. All the workers are used from our pool of labor and hundreds needed to do the rest of the work. They will come from the mainland and rents will sore. Put all the government projects on hold as they will all go up 25%.Oh yeah the star of the state legislature that brought us Kakaako be sides Neil- Sen.Ige.

Larry Mc said...

Well said ! Please spell out Kamehameha Highway.

Kahele said...

Didn't they say these rails were "magic rails" that weren't going to rust?