Honolulu Weekly

With Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in Washington, D.C. for a round of talks with federal transportation officials about Honolulu’s proposed $5.3 billion, 20-mile elevated-rail project, Gov. Linda Lingle hosted a public forum for a panel of architects to again detail their opposition to the plan.

Members of the public filled an overcrowded State capitol auditorium on Monday to hear the Honolulu chapter of the American Institute of Architects present its pitch for a rail system that would remain, in part, at street level.

The move signals what appears to be an intensifying rail debate between high-level City and State officials.

Not so fast

“It’s a dangerous game the governor is playing,” said City Managing Director Kirk Caldwell. “Especially if she cares at all about resolving our traffic problem, or about stimulating our economy or generating jobs.”

The governor said her last-minute questions about the basic nature of the City’s long-planned rail vision–which voters approved on a ballot initiative in 2008–come from fiscal concerns that arose relatively recently, due to the local economy’s nosedive over the past year and a half. Lingle said she rejects speculation that she’s setting in motion an attempt to reallocate half-a-billion dollars in funding set aside for rail to alleviate the state budget crisis.

Further, she said the City is misleading the public regarding the amount of information she actually has. She told the Weekly she received neither the final Federal Environmental Impact Statement or the draft administrative review of that document, the latter of which City officials said they sent to both the State and the Federal Transit Administration.

“I’m telling you, the City has not sent anything to the State,” said Lingle. “I don’t know what the FTA has. I am trying to say this in as clear and simple terms as I can: The City has not submitted anything. There’s nothing for me to do.”

But the Weekly obtained a copy of a December 3 letter that City Department of Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka sent to the State.

“We are enclosing two CD copies of the advance review of the Administrative Draft of the Final EIS, which is 99 percent complete with very little potential for material change,” wrote Yoshioka in a letter to the State. “It is our desire that the state’s… process be concluded prior to the federal process. Therefore, we are providing this review copy of the Final EIS in advance to give you adequate time for your expeditious review.”

Round and round

Honolulu residents–whose tax dollars have been siphoned into a fund for the City’s rail project that now totals about half a billion dollars–continue to face a deluge of rail viewpoints from all sides.

Monday’s six-person panel focused on how a rail system including at-grade components would be more visually appealing and, based on AIA estimates, $1.8 billion cheaper than all-elevated rail. Members of the AIA’s two-year-old rail taskforce have been vocal opponents of the City’s plan, which they call “terrible” and “rushed,” and discount criticism that engineers, not architects, should be the sole authority on City transit.

“City planning is integral to architecture,” said AIA Director Scott Wilson. “That’s what we learn from the very first design class. We don’t claim to be experts but we are trained in the built environment. When you put an elevated expressway in the middle of a city, you are creating a built environment.”

In addition to concerns over cost and aesthetics, panel members said that elevated rail would obstruct the line of sight from the mountains to the ocean to the point of cultural detriment, an argument that elevated-rail supporters called “self-serving.”

“When I see those photos from the City, I don’t see an elevated rail,” said ‘Ewa Beach resident Alicia Malwafiti. “I see big skyscrapers that those architects built. They already ruined the view.”

The bigger concern for many Oahu residents lies in delaying a project that would create thousands of jobs.

“We need jobs right now,” said ‘Ewa Beach resident Juan Vasquez. “How am I gonna support my family?”

Westside residents at Monday’s forum also complained of traffic jams that extend commutes to more than two hours. Lingle, who said she took a helicopter ride above the proposed rail route over the weekend, said she sympathizes with these hardships, but believes concerns about cost come first.

“I participated in a call with people from FTA,” said Lingle. “They told us… that the City will need a stronger financial plan before they are allowed to go to final design.”

Hawaii Department of Transportation Director Brennon Morioka said he listened in on that call.

“They indicated that the City is still in need of submitting a stronger financial plan, in light of the current economic conditions,” he wrote in an e-mail. FTA officials did not return the Weekly’s phone calls or e-mails before press time.

City officials insist that the financial planning component of the multibillion dollar project remains sound, while those who have followed closely the trajectory of the elevated-rail project say it’s now or never for rail of any kind.

“It’s really late in the game to be doing this,” said Rep. Karl Rhoads (D-District 28). “There have been dozens and dozens and dozens of times where everyone could say what they wanted to say on the record, in private, to their council member, to the governor, whoever they wanted to talk to.”

Rhoads said this moment is crucial.

“The political stars are aligning. We have a kamaaina who’s president, which is not gonna hurt us at all when it comes to funding. We have a kamaaina who’s chair of the Senate appropriations committee, the most powerful money spot to be in. We will get federal money for this project if we don’t screw it up. They’ve been talking about this for 44 years and they still can’t make up their mind. I think the Federal Transit Administration could easily say, ‘You know what, Honolulu? Forget it.’”