Another shock light rail transit story out of Hawaii

Between a Rock and a Hard Place | The Antiplanner

​More below.

"The Federal Transit Administration has informed Honolulu Area Rapid Transit (HART) that it will not help cover cost overruns associated with the agency’s 20-mile rail line. The project was originally supposed to cost about $5.1 billion, which was already ridiculously expensive, but now is projected to cost at least $8 billion and possibly as much as $11 billion.

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HART says it is examining its alternatives and hopes to have a viable proposal before FTA by the end of the year. But it probably isn’t looking closely at the most reasonable alternative, which is to completely abandon the project. While it has already sunk several billion into it, abandoning it would save taxpayers billions more in construction costs not to mention an estimated $126 million a year in operating costs. Since the city of Honolulu spends less than $185 million per year operating about 100 bus routes, $125 million is a phenomenal amount of money to spend on just one rail route."

From the comments:

"8,000,000,000 for a 20 mile route or $6313/inch of route . . . 

Somebody needs to come up with an illustration of how much money $8,000,000,000 and what it means to the Hawaiian people. 1,420,000 people in Hawaii, so every single person in Hawaii needs to fork over $5633 so this can be built." 

And that is the low estimate of overcharge.

Light rail, impoverishing America one rail line at a time.