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Friday, June 29, 2012
New Rail Financial Plan Boosts Operating Cost to $6 Billion, Delays Opening
By Honolulu Traffic @ 3:09 PM :: 8257 Views :: Rail

You saw it here first — the new rail financial plan:

From HonoluluTraffic.com

Since the City is a little slow off the mark getting good material online, we thought if best if we put up the new financial plan up on the web first. Here's

You will notice that instead of increasing the cost of the project, which was an option, HART instead chose to reduce the contingency amount.

You will also notice that the amount of bus funds they are using was reduced to $214 million from $244 million. That is an amount that will still come out of the City's General Fund.

And also note that the operating subsidy for transit has been increased by $600 million over the next 18 years to a total of $6 billion dollars.

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A "Save Our Honolulu" fundraiser on July 21st:

We are raising money to help fund our lawsuit to keep the heavy rail elevated train out of downtown Honolulu. Please join us for an evening of camaraderie, fun, good food and entertainment and a great silent auction!

Dr. Jeremy Lam has kindly offered his lovely home on Kalanianaole Highway with a beautiful view of the ocean and our beautiful Hawaiian sunsets.

5847 Kalanianaole Highway

Saturday, July 21st.

6:00 to 9:00pm

Valet parking will be available.

Minimum $100.00 contribution, tax deductible

Governor Ben Cayetano, Professor Randy Roth and Cliff Slater will briefly update us on all the latest news and answer all our questions.

Your tax deductible donation will help us reach this goal and your donation will be doubled! The Gerbode Foundation is offering us a matching grant of $25,000 provided that we raise that amount by the end of July.

Here are a few examples of the auction items:

A one week stay at a "Paradise Found" guest suite, just steps from Kailua beach with surfboards and kayaks available for your use. (What a wonderful gift for some honeymooners!)

A 2-3 hour sail for 4 on Kaneohe Bay on a TransPac yacht. This is a beautiful way to see the bay, and a lovely lunch is included.

A private tour of the Pacific Aviation Museum, with lunch, the aviation simulator!

A lovely home for a week on Malaekahana beach, which sleeps eight. An escape to Malaekahana would be perfect for a family birthday!

Send your RSVP along with your donation to: SBH Foundation Rail Fund, 6600 Kalanianaole Hwy, Suite 212, Honolulu HI 96825 Or, if you prefer to pay with your credit card on PayPal, www.paypal.com and then email your receipt together with your name and address. Download full details here.

Thank you for all of you interest and support, for all these nine years. You make this effort possible! We are near the end.

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More Delays: Rail Won’t Open ‘til 2016

SA: The city Thursday released details of its formal application for $1.55 billion in federal funding for the Honolulu rail line, the submittal of which rail advocates described as one of the most significant milestones yet for the controversial project.

The application for federal funding submitted Thursday shows the city has again delayed the opening date for the first stretch of the new rail line, with the initial segment from Kapolei to Aloha Stadium now expected to open in mid-2016. Last year, the city predicted that first segment would open in late 2015.

 

At one time, the city planned to open the first portion of the elevated train system as early as 2012, but that was put off because of delays in completing the environmental impact statement for rail and other issues that arose.

 

The application for federal funding submitted to the Federal Transit Administration includes a new financial plan that shows the overall cost has declined slightly.

However, the financial plan also shows taxpayer subsidies to operate Hono­lulu's transit network including TheBus, rail and TheHandi-Van will be larger in the years ahead than the city previously predicted, in part because of the extra cost of subsidizing the new rail system.

 

The financial plan predicts the overall cost of the 20-mile rail line including financing will be $5.16 billion, which is slightly less than the city estimated in the financial plan prepared for the project last year.

 

That price tag excludes about $100 million the city spent on planning and design activities that aren't counted in the official rail financial plan, which means the total price for the 20-mile rail line works out to about $5.26 billion.

 

The cost to buy the train cars and build the guideway, stations and other rail facilities will be about $70 million more than the city estimated last fall. The city expects to offset that expense by saving about $80 million in reduced borrowing costs because of low market interest rates....

 

read … Moving the slush around 

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