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As with anything related to the Honolulu’s rail plan, this week’s ceremonial groundbreaking and blessing comes with controversy. The anti-rail camp is preparing to show up and picket the ceremony. Leading the charge are nonprofit groups like the League of Women Voters and persistent rail critic Panos Prevedouros, who lost last year’s special election to Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle after a previous failed run against former Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

“Carlisle will be having a Ceremonial Groundbreaking of the rail project, which means it is a joke,” Prevedouros wrote in a mass e-mail on Friday. “If it was real, it would be the Groundbreaking Ceremony. Nevertheless, we plan to picket his fake event.”

The event will be more pomp than substance, but it it’s not exactly a “fake” groundbreaking. Last month, when the Federal Transit Administration issued a Record of Decision on the project, it enabled the city to begin some rail-related construction. But the city does not yet have clearance to build the actual rail line. The Record of Decision allows the city to:

• Acquire real property as identified in the final plan — called an environmental impact statement — as needed for the project, and relocate the people or businesses on that property
• Relocate utilities that would be affected by the project
• Acquire rail vehicles for the project

The Record of Decision does not allow any further work to begin, nor does the FTA guarantee covering the cost of the work that it permits at this stage. The city could later be reimbursed for this work if a federal funding agreement is finalized.

“This pre-award authorization is not a real or implied commitment by FTA to provide any funding for the Project or any element of the Project,” wrote Regional FTA Administrator Leslie Rogers in a January 18 to the city. “No other Project action has pre-award authorization at this time.”

Transportation Services Director Wayne Yoshioka said the city is well aware of the limitations on the work it can do at this time.

“The FTA is very clear about what we can and can’t do,” Yoshioka told Civil Beat after the Record of Decision was issued in January. “We understand that and, as we have in the past, we will be certain to follow that exactly.”

Despite constraints, beginning real property and vehicle acquisitions along with utility relocation represents a major milestone for the city. Yoshioka said contracting a vehicle supplier will give the city a better sense of project costs as it continues to work on upgrading its financial plan. Two previous contracts were less expensive — to the tune of about $150 million dollars, Yoshioka said — than the city projected. Rail planners hope future contracts will also cost less than expected.

Stopping History From Repeating Itself

The ceremonial groundbreaking is also significant because it represents a point in rail planning that city leaders from decades past have tried but failed to reach. In 1981, Honolulu Mayor Eileen Anderson turned down $5 million in federal money for preliminary engineering of a rail line, reportedly telling The New York Times, “Why spend $5 million on a system that won’t be built?”

More than a decade later, in 1992, Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi pushed for a rail system similar to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. It was to be called HART, reviving a rail plan Fasi pushed in his previous stint as mayor in the 1970s. The Honolulu City Council thwarted HART by rejecting a tax increase that would have helped pay for it. That changed in 2005, when — with state approval — the City Council passed a law to raise taxes to finance rail.

Six years later, rail opponents are quick to insist that the project still hasn’t passed the point of no return.

“Once these things get started it’s very hard to stop them,” said John Brizdle, a software executive in Hawaii who previously founded a tourism trolley company in Waikiki. “The truth is in the details. The truth is the city has pre-award authority to buy land and move utilities. The city can look you straight in the eye and say we have permission to start building rail. Technically, that’s correct but the big picture is it’s not important.”

Brizdle and others point to a moment of embarrassment for a previous city administration when, in 2004, the federal government pulled the plug on a $20 million promise for then-Mayor Jeremy Harris’ bus rapid transit project. The FTA had already issued a Record of Decision for the project, but rescinded it, calling the project “ineligible for FTA funding.”

“Unfortunately, the Department of Transportation Services’ (DTS) actions to begin incurring costs in the final design and construction of the [initial operating segment] absent required FTA approvals precludes further FTA participation,” the FTA’s Rogers wrote in a . “FTA’s program requirements, which have been known and shared with DTS repeatedly, are clearly set forth in law.”

Back to the Future

Today, rail officials often reiterate their meticulousness in proceeding with rail. Former Mayor Hannemann was fond of talking about crossing every “t” and dotting every “i” to comply with FTA regulations.

City officials have gotten just about all of the legislative approval they need to proceed, which rail planners say they hope will help remove political distractions from moving the project forward. When the new fiscal year starts in July, the rail division of the Department of Transportation Services will break off into a semi-autonomous agency — the creation of which was approved by voters in a November ballot question — called the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation or HART.

It will be responsible for planning, construction, operation, maintenance and expansion of the rail line. Its 10-member board will establish all fares, fees and charges for rail. The slew of permits rail planners will need throughout the construction process will come directly from the Department of Planning and Permitting without City Council approval.

Lawmakers will consider some laws that could fast track development near rail stations, but city and state officials have already given their blessing on the tax to pay for rail, the route of the rail line, construction of rail in special coastal zones and other key approvals.

What still remains to be finalized is arguably the most important obstacle rail planners must overcome: Money. The FTA has indicated serious interest in helping Honolulu move its project forward. Already, the federal agency gave the city $35 million for preliminary engineering, and recommended more than $300 million more. But that latter sum, including $55 million from fiscal year 2011 and $250 million for fiscal year 2012, has yet to reach Honolulu. The city’s Yoshioka told Civil Beat he hopes Honolulu can enter into a Full Funding Grant Agreement — signifying a concrete financial commitment by the FTA — by late this year.

Rail planners have been buoyed by support from Hawaii-born President Barack Obama and powerful U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye. But the future of funding is uncertain. The federal deficit crisis has political parties in a standoff, and funding for rail is on the Republicans’ chopping block.

As a messy budget debate continues to play out in Washington, Honolulu officials will take a long drive down the car-choked highway toward Kapolei this week. On , they’ll gather between Kapolei Parkway and Farrington Highway for a celebration. City officials will reflect on the decades of rail victories and defeats that have come before, hopeful about ultimately building what their predecessors repeatedly failed to complete.

Their opposition will be there, too, just as passionate and just as hopeful. Only they’ll be praying the project outcome is the same as it has been in the past, and that another imagined rail line will go unrealized.