Asking HART-Honolulu Rail Questions
Since the HART website does not have a lot of information, we were inclined to ask these questions:
- How much will the rail cost to get to Middle Street?
- How much will the rail cost to get to Ala Moana?
- When will the project be completed to Middle Street?
- Have any real estate developers signed any P3 agreements to fund a single rail station?
- Why is there a huge difference in cost to build the Rail Operations Center? (Compare the budget projections to the actual final cost)
- Why were the three contractors that did not get awarded Phase 1 of the project paid $500K each to bid on the project? Where is the accounting showing their expenses? And would these contractors have accepted $100K or $250K to still bid on the job?
- Why was Kiewit paid their 5% retention when they are not even completed with the project? Who agreed to a 5% early release of construction retention funds in the contract, and who authorized the release?
- Since the project is going ahead to Middle Street, where is the letter from HECO with respect to approved design and maximum costs for all the electric utility work?
- The recent contract that was awarded for Phase 2 is a Design Build type of contract which includes design of rail stations. HART has already paid millions of dollars to design consultant teams (architects/engineers) to design rail stations. How much of this design work that has already been done will the Phase 2 contractor use? And how much money was wasted in design work that was already completed, that will not be used.
- Why did HART ask for an extension to provide FTA with the Recovery Plan? If HART managed the rail project correctly, it should only take 30-60 days to provide the information to FTA. This is due to the fact that the project management system HART uses is in real time.
- Where is the money going to come from to fund HART operations
- When is the Final Recovery Plan going to be completed
- What happens if FTA does not approve the Final Recovery Plan?
- What happens if FTA approves additional funding but those funds are still not enough to complete the rail project?
- What happens if the State Legislature does not approve additional funding?
- What is the status of the City Council requested third party forensic audit of HART?
Note: When HART responds, their response will be posted on this website.