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It’s probably safe to say that few expected the difficult turn of events in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District when the year began.

U.S. Rep. Mark Takai, though diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year, seemed to be battling back, and after extensive testing and an aggressive first wave of treatment, was cleared by his physician to run for re-election. He had drawn no notable opponent, and seemed a lock to win.

Two weeks ago, that all changed with Takai’s announcement that his cancer had spread and that he would not seek a second term, sending a shock wave through Hawaii’s political establishment. Talk began quickly of who would jump in the race with only three months left to the primary and a little more than five until the general election.

Former Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa is expected to announce Thursday she’s running for the seat she held for four years prior to Takai. She faces an immediate choice regarding her service on the board of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, which sorely needs the leadership of someone who can focus exclusively on its billion-dollar woes.

Hanabusa gave up the CD 1 seat when she chose to challenge U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz in 2014, a race she lost in a squeaker. Since then, she has been practicing law, purportedly laying the groundwork for a rumored run for governor in 2018 and, in her most high-profile work, serving on the HART board. Mayor Kirk Caldwell appointed her to the board a year ago, and when Don Horner announced earlier this year his resignation as board chair, Hanabusa was chosen to succeed him.

Around the same time that Takai was making his announcement, the stakes for Hanabusa’s leadership on that board grew considerably, when she confirmed that federal transportation officials’ revised cost estimates indicate the rail project could cost as much as $8.1 billion. That’s nearly $3 billion more than the project’s original estimated price tag, and some say costs could grow even larger.

In fact, Federal Transit Administration officials have now signaled for the first time that they’d be willing to discuss less costly alternatives to the currently planned rail route.

Clearly, HART’s governing board and executive leadership have serious and complex work to do in coming weeks, both independently and in consultation with the City and County of Honolulu and the state.

Potentially, this doesn’t amount to small tweaks to the biggest public works project in state history, but major changes that could determine how billions in taxpayer dollars are spent and how hundreds of thousands of Honolulu commuters go from home to work and back each day for decades to come. As such, those considerations deserve HART board members’ undivided attention.

Hanabusa likely would be the first to say that running for federal office is a full-time job, even in the best of circumstances. And while she has run successfully for this office before, she is one of 10 Democrats who had pulled papers as of Friday to run for CD 1, so there’s no guarantee she won’t face some opposition.

The filing deadline is Tuesday for the Aug. 13 primary; absentee ballots go out to voters in less than two months.

Attempting a run for Congress and attempting to run the HART board simultaneously virtually assures that one of those jobs will be shortchanged.

Hanabusa spent last weekend at the state Democratic convention, where a statement was read from Takai that all but endorsed her as his successor.

Whoever wins the Democratic primary is unlikely to have a cake walk through the general election. Former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, who held the seat prior to Hanabusa, is also behaving like a possible candidate, particularly on social media, where his #Djou4HI hashtag is already circulating. Djou lost to Takai in 2014 by fewer than 4 percentage points.

Attempting a run for Congress and attempting to run the HART board simultaneously virtually assures that one of those jobs will be shortchanged. Hanabusa owes it to the constituents she would represent to step down from the HART board. This would allow another volunteer leader to take her place and give Mayor Kirk Caldwell the chance to replace her with someone who has the capacity to give the role the focus that it needs.

When Hanabusa lost to Schatz in the Democratic primary in 2014, she made the decision four days after the vote not to legally challenge the results, despite losing by fewer than 2,000 votes in an election interrupted on Hawaii Island by tropical storms. It was a tough call, but Hanabusa bowed out gracefully, saying at the time, “I can move on from this election knowing I listened to the people and fought hard for the right to represent them, honorably.”

It was the right thing to do in a challenging situation, and we have every reason to believe Hanabusa will do the right thing relative to taxpayers and HART, as well.

As difficult as those circumstances are, though, they’re nothing compared to the challenges facing Congressman Takai. A dedicated, diligent public servant who spent 20 years in the Hawaii House of Representatives, the past 1½ in Congress and 17 in the Hawaii Army National Guard, where he continues to serve as a lieutenant colonel, Takai deserved better than this unfortunate abbreviation of his work in the nation’s capital.

We join with many others around Hawaii and in Washington in sending our heartfelt best wishes to him and his family as he fights for far more important things than re-election to another term.