News: HART takes on its ‘largest contract’ for Oahu’s rail system
Posted on Jul 22, 2024 in MainSpecial Report: HART takes on its ‘largest contract’ for Oahu’s rail system
Rendering of the Kuloloia rail station in Downtown Honolulu.
A little more than a year since the first 11 miles of Oahu’s rail system, Skyline, opened to the public, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, or HART, is more than halfway through the completion of the project.
According to HART Executive Director and CEO Lori Kahikina, about $5.1 billion out of the estimated $10 billion budget for the rail has been spent to date with the first segment completed, the second segment being energized and utility work underway for the third segment.
What comes next will be “the largest contract of the entire project,” said HART Deputy Executive Director and COO Rick Keene. The City Center Guideway and Stations Design-Build contract entails the construction of segment 3’s elevated guideway and six stations stretching about three miles from segment 2 to the civic center in Kakaako.
“[This contract] is so significant because [of] time,” Keene said. “It’s been several years since some of the contracts were awarded on the West Side, let’s say, so with inflation contract, it’s just more expensive today. We’re coming into the most dense part of the entire project. … We’re now coming into Downtown Honolulu, into heavy traffic and lots of congestion and lots of buildings.”
According to HART’s website, the deadline for contractors to submit their bids in part two of the request for proposal is July 23. An anticipated notice of award could be released in early August.
In an interview with Pacific Business News, Kahikina shared the latest updates on the rail as HART progresses toward completion of its third segment slated for 2031.
What additional disruptions can businesses near the construction project on Dillingham Boulevard expect?
What the businesses are going through, right now, on Dillingham, that’s the worst of it. There’s not going to be anything new, we are tearing up the entire area [for utility work]. … Once that utility relocation is done, the next contractor that’s going to follow on —that’s going to be building the columns and the guideway — that [work] will be a little more linear. I don’t know which direction [the future contractor] is going to come from, if he’s going to go east to west or west to east that’s his means and methods, we can’t tell them what to do. … The businesses do need to understand that it was quite a disruption for them to have no left turns into the driveways … but that’s not going to stop. Just like on the West Side, once the columns come in, there’s going to be a medial strip in the center there, you will never be able to turn the left at most locations.
Is the project on schedule and on budget?
This project started way back — HART came into existence in 2011. This project was supposed to be completely pau by 2020. Well, obviously, we’ve missed that deadline. The budget at that time was supposed to be $5 billion. Well, we’re double that. But since Rick and I and the new administration have come in, we had to write that [2022] Recovery Plan to the Federal Transit Administration to say, this is what we feel we can afford, this is the funds we have, the schedule that we have. I would say with our new budget and schedule, yes, we are on time on budget. I can’t speak to what happened in the past but what we told the FTA is the project is about $10 billion and we’re going to finish in 2031 to Kakaako.
Many local businesses are dealing with a worker shortage and feeling the impacts of inflation, is HART facing similar issues?
We are. … so we try to hire for our staff “city staff first,” meaning if I hire them they are a city employee if we cannot we augment with our consultants. … But even the consultants are having a difficult time filling their positions, the competition is so tough out there. … We are struggling with staffing and even resources [and with] supply chain issues. People are still coming out of the Covid-19 [pandemic] I know that was many years ago [but] the supply chain is still an issue and again, across the nation we’re competing for resources. So how we overcome it is with our relationships. … With Hawaiian Electric, its like, “OK, do you have transformers sitting in your stock yard and can we use it?” Then, we buy one to replace it – it just takes three years to restock.
What other accomplishments with rail are you proud of?
[Our staff], they’re working really well as a team, as one HART ohana. Whether the consultant or city staff, it doesn’t matter, they all work together. They are accomplishing phenomenal things even though we’re short staffed, there’s nothing that is dropping through the cracks, despite what the board members kind of portray in the board meetings, nothing is falling through the cracks. I’m just so proud of what the team is accomplishing.