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With an interim plan now formally on the table, the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and the city have complied with a Federal Transit Administration requirement for consideration of any additional time to work out a new plan for the over-budget rail project.

But just because that interim document has been submitted doesn’t mean the FTA will go along. Officials with the agency took a hard line when they met with Honolulu leaders on the project just weeks ago in San Francisco. The feds essentially gave Honolulu three options: find an acceptable way to finish the project, put an interim plan together by the end of September or start figuring out how to repay $1.55 billion the federal government was investing in the project.

With that in mind, we support HART’s request to extend the deadline to put together a new plan until mid-2017. But not necessarily for the same reasons HART wants additional time.

Taxpayers have already invested billions in this troubled project, not to mention a lot of faith in the promises of elected officials who sold the project to voters years ago. That sales pitch promised rail as a $3.7 billion project.

Eight years later, the project’s estimated cost has since increased to $8.6 billion, as HART announced last week, and could eventually hit $10 billion, according to the FTA. Last week’s announcement also increased the project’s financial shortfall to $1.8 billion and pushed the expected completion date from 2024 to 2025.

Despite those stark facts, HART has yet to fully disclose the details that brought the project to its current bank-busting state. With costs spiraling and criticism mounting, HART in August coughed up a year’s worth of subcontractor invoices totaling $235 million. But that’s it thus far.

Taxpayers deserve a full accounting of how their hard-earned money has been spent — or misspent — as opposed to the legal dodges that had been HART’s go-to response until its modest August disclosure.

With the ball now in the Federal Transit Administration’s court as to whether to grant Hawaii more time, more trouble may be in the project’s near future. HART Board Chair Colleen Hanabusa is likely to packing her bags for Washington in 33 days, when voters decide on two congressional races she’s part of: one to fill the final two months of the late Mark Takai’s congressional term and the other to take a full term immediately after that.

Unlike other candidates for Congress, Hanabusa would have to begin work immediately if she wins both races, not in January when new members will be sworn in for the next congressional term.

Taxpayers deserve a full accounting of how their hard-earned money has been spent — or misspent — instead of legal dodges.

The FTA owes this project no debt of respect or extra consideration over its leadership challenges. But it does owe substantial deference to the taxpayers whose money is tied up in the Honolulu rail project.

Therefore, we call on the FTA to grant Honolulu’s request for a mid-2017 deadline to come up with a new plan — not because we have faith in the authority’s ability to rein in costs or manifest the sort of management acumen it has been lacking.

No, we believe allowing HART to go cap in hand back to the Legislature to make its case for more funding will provide the only legitimate opportunity for taxpayers to get a full accounting of what was done with their money. And, as we argued in September, we believe complete disclosure and full transparency is absolutely essential before any conversations take place at the Hawaii Capitol or at Honolulu Hale about committing another red cent to this project.

As HART waits on the federal response to its interim plan and deadline request, its current leadership should be spending its remaining days to their best advantage by preparing that long-overdue accounting.