HONOLULU — The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation has issued proposal requests to hire a federal lobbyist and a board consultant to lobby officials.
HONOLULU — The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation has issued proposal requests to hire a federal lobbyist and a board consultant to lobby officials.
The organization responsible for creating Honolulu’s rail line faces a project shortfall of about $3 billion, HART interim CEO Lori Kahikina said Wednesday.
HART said it plans on spending about $1 million over the next several years on federal lobbyists. The organization added that it is planning on hiring the lobbyists to raise funding for the financially plagued rail system.
“I did not initiate this, but I am in full support of this because any support we can get is needed,” Kahikina said.
The request was submitted as the organization prepares a plan to pay for the final leg of the 20-mile (32-kilometer) rail project from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center. The federal government in December gave the agency a one-year extension on a deadline to detail its plans.
HART must now submit its plans by the end of the year.
The organization had spent about $320,000 a year to lobby the federal government. But former CEO Andrew Robbins ended the practice two years ago after the rail system’s cost increased substantially.
The project is expected to cost almost double the price and take eight years longer to build than initially expected.
The Chinese could have built the Rail for under $1 billion and finished it in a year max
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Thanks Ding dong. The rail transit in China stretches 22,735 miles. It is goes about 120 mph to 220 mph in speed. High speed. This is serious engineering and we’re talking nerds city here. Unlike the city and county of Honolulu plan under Mufi Hannemann. A total lost of a project.
I’ll give this to the nerds in China. They know what they’re doing.
I think this idea sucks. You’re going to ask the community to fund this project? After you said it was fully funded by the federal government. This says that all the workers and engineers ran away because they did their part, and don’t have to deal with the whole project. This really is a junk plan that the city has come up with when they thought about this in 2009 under Mufi Hannemann as Honolulu’s mayor. I think he is really a strange individual. Now the city is stuck with this project, and trying to scramble their way out of a mess and not a defunct project after 12 years of building this useless and worthless project called the rail transit.
Here we go again I would like to know who’s getting the kickbacks on the rail line . It like the job is being done by pelosi. Or the chgo mayor Lori lightfoot so everyone n there friends get a piece of the pie. Look at what’s going on with the state anyway with the corruption like what goes on in California and Chicago . Looks who’s running the government in Hawaii there’s a lot of west coast influence n with that comes corruption ask pelosi she was a mob bosses daughter.