������Ƶ

The city rail authority is searching for more money to fund a huge new construction contract, and that may cause delays installing equipment to stabilize the electrical system as trains depart from West Oahu stations, according to a newly released recording of a meeting of the rail board of directors.

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is scrambling to cut costs for various planned rail work to raise extra cash for a $1.66 billion construction contract to build the elevated rail line through the urban core to Kakaako.

The bid for that contract with the Los Angeles-based Tutor Perini Corp. was about $300 million more than HART had budgeted for the work. Known as the City Center Guideway and Stations (CCGS) contract, it includes three miles of elevated rail line and six rail stations.

The extra money needed for the new contract will cause the total estimated cost of rail to slightly increase once again, from $9.933 billion today to $10.065 billion, according to HART staff. It will also require deferral of some rail-related construction work until the city can find more money.

The Honolulu rail project has struggled with a long series of delays and cost escalations. The project was originally supposed to cost about $5.2 billion and be finished in 2020.

The HART Board of Directors met in a closed-door session on Aug. 13 for a briefing on various ways HART might be able to save money in the short term to free up cash that can then be shifted to the CCGS contract. HART recently released a recording of that executive session to Civil Beat — something it had agreed to do once the contract was awarded.

Board members were briefed on possible strategies for saving money, including reducing “contingency” funding that is held in reserve to cope with unexpected cost increases on major contracts, and deferring rail-related work that the HART staff does not believe is immediately needed.

HART said in a written statement that “generally speaking, several projects are being considered for deferral … but final decisions about deferrals have not yet been made. No project that is being considered for deferral will have a significant impact on the traveling public.”

Near the top of the list is a proposal to save more than $60 million by delaying installation of seven units of Static Synchronous Compensation Equipment, known as “STATCOMs.” Those are supposed to stabilize the voltage of the electrical supply in West Oahu when the rail line is busy.

Hawaiian Electric Co. raised concerns more than five years ago that the electrical supply in the area around the rail line might be affected as the electric Skyline trains accelerate out of the stations.

The rail system’s four-car trains will need brief bursts of electrical power as they leave the 19 stations along the line, and utility officials warned the circuits on the power grid are not designed for that kind of abrupt change in load.

The agreed-upon solution was the STATCOM equipment, which HART was planning to install next year to deal with that issue.

But HART Project Director Vance Tsuda told board members last month the HECO studies that demonstrated a need for STATCOMs were based on running 17 trains operating at 90-second intervals — headways.

The system is not operating at anywhere near that level now — Tsuda said the current headway is six minutes during “rush hour” today — and HART staff are proposing to delay the STATCOM work.

Darren Pai, manager for external communications for Hawaiian Electric Co., said in a written statement that the utility “would be interested to hear HART’s thoughts on this topic and how it plans to ensure that its operations do not have negative impacts on other customers served by the electric system.”

Another proposed cost-saving measure would be to defer work on what is known as above Farrington Highway. It was unclear from the presentation to the board exactly how much savings could be had by delaying that work.

“We would need to move those funds, deferring that scope — not deleting the scope, just deferring it to a later time — and taking those funds and applying it to the CCGS contract,” Tsuda said.

Other major savings would come from more than $112 million from anticipated reductions in contract costs and contingency reserves for utility relocation work that is being done in the downtown area, Tsuda told the board members.

HART is also projecting savings of more than $75 million in contract costs and contingency reserves for utility relocation work underway along Dillingham Boulevard, a piece of the project that has been hugely expensive and troublesome for the city thus far.

The Federal Transit Administration approved a new Full Funding Grant Agreement earlier this year that assumes the entire project will cost $9.933 billion, so the FTA likely will need to be consulted about the new and higher cost estimate of $10.065 billion.

HART said in a written statement that the rail authority “expects that some level of review and concurrence from FTA will be needed. HART has had preliminary discussions with the FTA about the award of the (CCGS) contract, but the specific level of documentation and review that will be required by the FTA has not yet been determined.”

Randy Roth, a retired professor at the University of Hawaii’s Richardson School of Law, said he doubts the latest, relatively modest increase in the overall cost of the rail project will have any great impact on its progress.

Rail supporters have been arguing for years that “they’ve spent too much money to stop,” said Roth, who has been a rail skeptic.

“That’s their case,” he said. “They may be using a whole lot of words and waving their arms when they’re using them, but it boils down to ‘We can’t stop now.'”

“That’s their argument, and it’s sure worked well for them so far,” he said.

Construction of the entire 18.9-mile rail line from East Kapolei to Kakaako is scheduled to be complete in March 2031.