Honolulu “Train to No-Where” Faces a $3.7 Billion Shortfall

Under construction for a decade, a 20-mile-long urban rail line in Honolulu faces a $3.7 billion shortfall and a delayed completion date.

That sounds like a project worth investing another $70 million in federal stimulus, right?

The behind-schedule and over-budget project run by the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation began in 2009 and received $1.8 billion in federal money, although ground was not broken until 2011.

The project recently collected another $70 million from the American Rescue Plan’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus.

But it has not stopped there.

Now the project plans to spend $1 million on federal lobbyists to help close the funding gap on the project.

But as Republican Sen. Joni Ernst from Iowa pointed out when she highlighted the project in her April "Squeal Award" designed to call out government waste, the Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project was supposed to be completed by January 2020 and cost $5.1 billion.

The cost has more than doubled to $12.5 billion and its completion date is pushed back to 2023, as it is only half-completed.

Ernst said throwing more money at the project will not get the project back on track, and it should not get any more federal funding.

She is right. Instead of shoveling more taxpayer funds into a project with an out-of-control budget, the money train should be stopped dead in its tracks.

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.