Rail

...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....

...project announcement is the effective taking date triggering property owners' right to compensation and damages....

...FTA also stated that they are watching to see what HART’s new strategy to build the City Center portion of the guideway will look like....

“Because Farrington Highway and Kamehameha Highway are on the National Highway System, the reconstruction projects are eligible for Federal aid funds, subject to selection by OahuMPO and HIDOT.”  -- FHWA Acting Director Nadeau, October 7, 2015

“The FTA will allow nothing less.” -- Kirk Caldwell

...Speaker Saiki named Tobias “Toby” Martyn and Kamani Kuala‘au ... Senate President Kouchi named Kalbert K. Young and Wesley Machida as his appointees to the board....

...At no point did the FTA reject a “Plan B” option....

...the four horsemen of the transit apocalypse include....

...bills passed by the Honolulu City Council last week create and authorize the Waikīkī Transportation Management Special Improvement District....

...You know you are in trouble when you have to write a recovery plan for a project that isn’t even half built....

...HART’s CEO, for example, gets $317,000 plus a “housing allowance” of about $4,600 a month and a “transportation allowance” of $600 a month....

...number of significant condo and retail projects have wrapped up on Oahu, while fewer new buildings have broken ground, resulting in an overall reduction in construction activity and employment....

"...Doing nothing is unacceptable...." -- Mayor Kirk Caldwell, Sept 18, 2017

...the Honolulu City Council unanimously approved Resolution 17-199 to audit the rail for financial cost overruns, but watered down language that would’ve made the audit “forensic.”....

...The special session rail bill, SB 4, provides that if the Foundation wins and the State is ordered to refund money to the City, then the State will scoop the same amount of money from the City’s share of transient accommodations tax....

... to  discuss the current status of the Honolulu rail project. He will meet with representatives from Hitachi, Seibu, and Tokyu Corporation ....

...the most recent version of the proposed resolution requests an “independent forensic audit” of HART operations and contract awards....

...In two and a half years we have successfully reduced the pipeline from nearly $750 million to $505 million....

......Our floor amendment to exclude neighbor islands from the 1% TAT increase received support from four other neighbor island Representatives....

...Ige’s signing of the rail funding bill also allows the Honolulu City Council to approve Bill 45, which extends O‘ahu’s half-percent surcharge to the state general excise tax another three years....

...The TAT, when it was enacted in 1986, was primarily meant to fund the Hawaii Convention Center....

...Senators highlighted in YELLOW are up for reelection in 2018.  Only four of them voted for the tax hike....

...Timson worked at First Hawaiian Bank as vice president while FHB Chairman Don Horner was HART board chair. She organized large groups of screaming union supporters to crash, harass and threaten at public meetings....

...Require the State Auditor to perform a forensic audit to look for fraud, waste, and abuse....

...FTA is complicit.  That’s why it is likely to approve a Plan B that stops at Middle Street....