I spoke with an engineer that moved here from Shanghai; said the rail would have been built in a year if it was the Chinese, because they don't care about native Hawaiians or any other BS, and they just want to get it done.

He theorizes that we could do the same, but people are too busy lining their pockets. Also, if you take 20 years to build a 1 year project, you keep people employed for longer periods of time.

Shouldn't this be in "Off Topic"? 

This is great! I wish our own rail was being built in a similar way.

Shouldn't this be in "Off Topic"? 

You're right, it should be in off topic. But since we're here......

We in America used to do innovative things like this, now we worry about "climate change" and whether trees are "happy". 

Excuse me, I have to go take a picture of my morning cup of coffee and post it to Facebook........

Realistically speaking, no the Rail would not be done in a year because Hawaii does not have enough of a labor force to complete the Rail in that time.  This also includes the thought that all plans were approved and were 100%, all permits were pulled, etc...........no planning delays.  Also assumes that there are no production delays on the materials and equipment.  Also assumes there is no delay on getting enough concrete to build all the foundations and structures.

Q, the engineer you talked to has 0 clue on how stretched Hawaii is right now.  I always had heard how busy Hawaii was in the '80's with the big construction boom.  Before the crash in '08 dollar for dollar Hawaii was busier than that.  In the last year or two we are significantly busier than '08.  There is simply not enough resources to pull right now to build the Rail any quicker.  There are literally 0 workers on the bench for certain unions.

Realistically speaking, no the Rail would not be done in a year because Hawaii does not have enough of a labor force to complete the Rail in that time.  This also includes the thought that all plans were approved and were 100%, all permits were pulled, etc...........no planning delays.  Also assumes that there are no production delays on the materials and equipment.  Also assumes there is no delay on getting enough concrete to build all the foundations and structures.

Q, the engineer you talked to has 0 clue on how stretched Hawaii is right now.  I always had heard how busy Hawaii was in the '80's with the big construction boom.  Before the crash in '08 dollar for dollar Hawaii was busier than that.  In the last year or two we are significantly busier than '08.  There is simply not enough resources to pull right now to build the Rail any quicker.  There are literally 0 workers on the bench for certain unions.

The Shanghai Metro System consists of 14 lines and 337 stations, with 22 miles of track finished upon opening. Construction started in 1986, was completed in 1993, and with construction continuing since it's opening, it is now approximately 341 miles. If you take the average, that means approximately 3.75 miles of track were completed each year from the start of construction in 1986 until it's original opening in 1993; Hawaii has yet to even complete 1 mile, and is already extremely over budget, with foundations already failing before the tracks have even been laid.

So what's the excuse again?

And the problem with the unions is just that: they prevent private contracts from doing the work, or throw temper tantrums and go on strike when they don't get their way. If the project was extended to any qualified individual(s) willing to accept the pay offered without needed to jump through union hoops and politicians trying to line their pockets, this project would have been done already; just like if the Chinese would have taken over the project.

I am not a big fan of the unions. However, I can say with absolute impunity that the unions have had nothing to do with how long the rail is taking to be built. The lack of qualified labor is a problem. A huge problem. But it has affected the rail project very little if any. The labor shortage has hurt the private and commercial projects more so.

The real issue in how long the rail is taking has more to do with politics, the politicians, a willingness on the part of the politicians and HART to lie to the public in order to garner enough support to get the project started. A schedule was produced that was a best case scenario. And in a perfect world that schedule could have been kept and the rail would have been completed on time in 2018-2019. But as we all know nothing goes perfect in the construction world. Most of the lying corrupt politicians have moved on. We have the executive director of HART who has inherited all of this and basically is in continuous crisis mode.

If the politicians and HART had revealed the real schedule or worse the worst case scenario schedule we would have never received the federal funding and thus would not garner the support from the people of Hawaii who voted for the rail based on lies. It is already obvious that we are going to have to repay the $1.5B in federal funds because we won't be able to finish the project in time. This was a condition of us receiving the funding in the first place. Of course they have not come out and admitted that yet.

And it gets worse. More issues pertaining to having to lengthen the construction time even more and more cost over runs will be revealed some time after the new general contractor is chosen and gets started on the second half of the project.

In my opinion, the rail project was a short term solution to fan the dying economic fire. Tax the people to create short term job growth. We have no other growth industry in the islands. Tourism, construction (how much can we build on an island?) and the military presence are our economic subsistence. Any other sources of inflows to the islands besides that? Finance? Tech?
And were there any real statistics or surveys that would support rail ridership? How much traffic can we expect to eliminate with the rail? Anyone remember taking any kind of survey?
I fear that this rail would be like the convention center. Big promises with end results that were far less than that. We have short term memory and our lives are already busy trying to make ends meet to worry about a big past mistake.
Surprised the native Hawaiian movement haven't cried or protested about how this shameful public project is tearing up the land. Take a walk down Kam Highway in Pearl City and/or Waipahu and see how much digging they are doing. Maybe the Hawaiian movement got their payout ahead of all the out-of-state contractors, engineers, architects and other consulting services.

Surprised the native Hawaiian movement haven't cried or protested about how this shameful public project is tearing up the land. Take a walk down Kam Highway in Pearl City and/or Waipahu and see how much digging they are doing. Maybe the Hawaiian movement got their payout ahead of all the out-of-state contractors, engineers, architects and other consulting services.

There were many Native Hawaiians who were against the rail project from the beginning.  However, as with many other locals who were against the rail project, they were never given much coverage.  Whether some Hawaiian sovereignty groups received some payout is doubtful, since there would be very little money left for them at the bottom of the pecking order with the politicians, contractors, engineers, etc., first in-line.


Kuleana

I read today the $450M needed to connect the electric service along the rail has never been included in the budget estimates.

That's another half a billion dollars more than the current massive, over-run estimates!

In my opinion, the rail project was a short term solution to fan the dying economic fire. Tax the people to create short term job growth. We have no other growth industry in the islands. Tourism, construction (how much can we build on an island?) and the military presence are our economic subsistence. Any other sources of inflows to the islands besides that? Finance? Tech?
And were there any real statistics or surveys that would support rail ridership? How much traffic can we expect to eliminate with the rail? Anyone remember taking any kind of survey?
I fear that this rail would be like the convention center. Big promises with end results that were far less than that. We have short term memory and our lives are already busy trying to make ends meet to worry about a big past mistake.
Surprised the native Hawaiian movement haven't cried or protested about how this shameful public project is tearing up the land. Take a walk down Kam Highway in Pearl City and/or Waipahu and see how much digging they are doing. Maybe the Hawaiian movement got their payout ahead of all the out-of-state contractors, engineers, architects and other consulting services.

I believe there were many surveys quoted to the people. Whether anyone ever took any of the surveys, I couldn't say. I wouldn't doubt that it was totally fabricated as the sheeple off Hawaii fell for all the other lies. There was a study that was quoted a lot stating how much ridership was needed to break even and how many were estimated that were going to ride the rail by a particular year.

The native Hawaiians did cry out. And there is a process that the City/County had to go through to quiet them down. It delayed construction on the rail for approximately one year. Whether they got paid off I couldn't say. But HART/City/County did jump through hoops and went through a survey of the entire route and any and all possible burial sites were identified and the Hawaiians were given the opportunity to move any remains.

We have very little tech companies and jobs in this state. About 90% of what we do have is on this island.

BTW, I am just listening to the news and HART needs to borrow $350M to stay in the black while they build the rail. Just announced. Taxpayers will be on the hook if not paid back by the deadline. GREAT!!! 

so how many of us would include the rail in our daily lives?

so how many of us would include the rail in our daily lives?

Normally, I would not even think about it. But right now I am commuting to Ala Moana Center from Kapolei every day for work. Since I don't require my truck/tools on this particular project I certainly would consider riding it for the duration of the project I am working on. Unfortunately, this project is going to finish long before the rail will run here.

The Shanghai Metro System consists of 14 lines and 337 stations, with 22 miles of track finished upon opening. Construction started in 1986, was completed in 1993, and with construction continuing since it's opening, it is now approximately 341 miles. If you take the average, that means approximately 3.75 miles of track were completed each year from the start of construction in 1986 until it's original opening in 1993; Hawaii has yet to even complete 1 mile, and is already extremely over budget, with foundations already failing before the tracks have even been laid.

So what's the excuse again?

And the problem with the unions is just that: they prevent private contracts from doing the work, or throw temper tantrums and go on strike when they don't get their way. If the project was extended to any qualified individual(s) willing to accept the pay offered without needed to jump through union hoops and politicians trying to line their pockets, this project would have been done already; just like if the Chinese would have taken over the project.

With regards to the foundations, keep in mind that foundation work is extremely specialized and is subject to local conditions that cannot always be classified prior to work starting.  This is essentially the huge muckup that Kiewit has run into.  I think they have a handle on the foundations now, but definitely not at the start.

With regards to the unions preventing "private contracts" to do the work, I'm not sure what you mean.  This is a public project and as such must pay Davis Bacon wages.  This means unionized or non-unionized the workers should be paid the same wages and those are tracked with certified payrolls.  Also the average private whatever is not going to have the skill or knowledge or money to pursue this type of contract.........way too large for what they are used to.

I do agree about the politicians however.  I would be surprised if everything they've done is above board.