According to the news this rail is now coasting the tax payers 10 BILLION. One of the issues is that the concrete is cracking and in some places the pillars are already sinking (settling as they call it) so they have put shims between the pillar and rail. I have on a couple of accounts spoke with some of the rail workers and what they say is "This rail is a joke" The estimated cost is going to exceed 10 BILLION and what does that mean for the people of Hawaii? Our taxes go up so we the Hawaiian people pay for the rail and our pay will remain the same. Not to mention the rebar they bought for the rail was bought way to early and is now rusting. Do you think they will clean the rust off the rebar before applying concrete to this metal? According to the workers....NO! The rust will not allow the rebar to adhere to the concrete causing no support. No support, and in a few years concrete starts to crack Hawaii is 10+Billion in the hole because of this rail, how fast do you think they are going to fix the crack? I tell you this I bet they raise our taxes again before they fix the cracks and the shifting of pillars. Rant over.

This would be only a 2 year project in China, according to my friend's friend who is a Chinese railroad engineer while he was visiting Hawaii and being a railroad engineer wanted to see this 7 year project.  Of course in China they would be working on it 24/7 and not wasting time in court acquiring property as they moved along.  I personally think this fiasco will cost $12B before it is done, then after the initial novelty of riding rail, people will go back to driving cars and the only ridership rail will have are those already using the bus.

Similar to how misconceptions on guns go around, this is one for concrete construction.

http://www.concreteconstruction.net/how-to/materials/how-clean-must-rebar-be_o

There's a link to the PDF of the full article.  There are many more like it available.  Basically, rust doesn't significantly impact bond strength of deformed rebar, which is what they are using in typical concrete construction and for the rail.  That as long as the rebar isn't scaling to the point where it has lost section (I would have to look up the limits for where a bar is deemed not acceptable), it's just fine in terms of bonding to concrete. 

However, cracking of the concrete is a significant concern to the durability of the concrete and longevity of concrete construction.  The cracks allow infiltration by water and air.  Rebar that is exposed to water and air will corrode and exposure to chlorides accelerates the process. 

I haven't seen the detailing of the rail project, but the fact of the matter is concrete cracks.  If you can invent concrete that doesn't crack, you'll be a multi-billionaire!

Being that I have been a concrete inspector for 35 years I can validate your basic statements regarding rust, rebar and concrete. As an inspector I would look for actual scaling and then reject the rebar for it. And on the rail project I did. In fact, Kiewit water blasted the reinforcing removing all scaling and left a minimal amount of rust which does help with the bond. Now I have not worked on the rail for well over a year so I cannot say whether they have discontinued the practice of cleaning the rebar before burying it or if they are still cleaning it.

As far as settling is concerned it is considered normal until it becomes out of plumb or causes stress cracks. And the cracking probably is normal unless it is stress cracking. I am sure the structural engineers are keeping an eye on anything other than shrinkage cracking.

Being a structural engineer for 20 years, thanks for the validation. 

I've gotten the rust on rebar question many times.  I probably asked it a few times when I first started.  I specialized in concrete construction, but mostly for buildings, when I lived in WA.  Since moving back to HI, rust is definitely more of an issue, particularly with waterfront structures, which is what I deal with often nowadays.  I have a lot of project in Guam.  Think corrosion is bad here, Guam is way worse! 

True about the settling.  Many structures, like retaining walls and some caisson and pile structures need to be "activated" by some amount of movement.  Of course, the designer needs to be aware and account for those effects. 

If they are stress cracks, they are in real trouble.  That said, the loading imposed by the erection and leveling of the box sections may be more than what many of those supports will encounter when in operation. 

Shrinkage cracking is also so tough to control.  Concrete temperature, humidity, wind speed, etc.  We've had contractor's place concrete at 2 am with ice water to control the heat of hydration.  I wasn't the lead engineer on that project, but I heard that the inspectors weren't happy.   

Inspectors are never "happy" 

Donuts or manapua usually help.   

rail hasn't been completed and there is already signs of graffiti
I anticipated graffiti would be an issue, what is better than thousands of square feet of fresh canvas for Hawaii's graffiti artists and taggers? 
It's a concrete jungle out there, and young people are always eager to get their name out....

WAIPAHU, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) -

One of Honolulu's pricey new rail cars was covered with elaborate vandalism overnight, and Honolulu Police are trying to figure out who is responsible.

A giant mural stretches across the full length of one of the four cars that arrived on the island just last month. The intricate graffiti reaches all the way up to the car's roof and over its windows.

While some may find it pretty, it's still a criminal act.

"People should be outraged. These are very expensive trains that we bought. Probably about $2 million a car," said Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Spokesman Bill Brennan.

The cars sit in the rail Operations Center next to Leeward Community College. The building is locked at 4 p.m. and reopened at 6 a.m.

This would be only a 2 year project in China, according to my friend's friend who is a Chinese railroad engineer while he was visiting Hawaii and being a railroad engineer wanted to see this 7 year project.  Of course in China they would be working on it 24/7 and not wasting time in court acquiring property as they moved along.  I personally think this fiasco will cost $12B before it is done, then after the initial novelty of riding rail, people will go back to driving cars and the only ridership rail will have are those already using the bus.

After talking someone who studied city planning I came to understand some of the complexity in pricing. It isn't all just waste and corruption, there is a sizeable element of uncertainty.

When they plan a project that might be finished 10 years later there are a lot of variables. For example, what are materials, labor, and fuel going to cost in 5 years? Then there are less predictable things that could delay and therefore add cost like the protestors, the discovery of bones, etc.

It may be that much of the cost overrun comes from poor initial planning and estimates.

The question now is where do we go from here? We could save a few bucks here and there but ultimately we know it is going to cost us a lot more than originally expected. Do we scrap the plan and leave a bunch of useless pillars dotting the landscape or do we suck it up and keep building?

Yeah, that's what they get PAID to do, they screwed it up. When they don't bother to take into account water, sewer and utility lines in a portion of the construction, even though the information is readily available, that isn't "complexity". It's gross incompetence. In the private sector, if you display such incompetence, you get fired. At this point the estimated cost to complete this abortion has literally quadrupled from the original 3 billion. { I think I'll go with the FTA estimate, since they've been accurate so far } I would say that qualifies as "poor planning and initial estimates" at the very least.

I say yes, we scrap it and leave the pillars up as a monument to political ignorance, corruption and incompetence. Then every time some moronic politician gets a bright idea to spend money we don't have we walk them out there and rub their nose in the dirt surrounding the pillars like a disobedient dog that has pee'd on the carpet.

I guess I am at the point where I figure that so much of it is built already that I say just spend the extra money and finished. But no matter which way it goes we are getting the short end of the stick.

The reason I pointed out the cost estimation issues is that it is not necessarily corruption or poor management. Now had the estimators accurately predicted a $6 billion or $8 billion price tag they still might have gone through with it and the end cost would remain the same. Only difference is that we would know the true cost up front instead of at the end. So incompetence maybe, but would it have made a different if they gave an accurate estimate?

I have met people at the board of water who have told me that maps of water supply and sewer lines aren't always accurate though no fault of their own but through the fault of whoever put in the system decades ago. So a researcher may have done due diligence in researching for utility systems and come up with fault estimates through no fault of their own. But as I said, utilities are more easily to account for than other hiccups. Again, i am just speculating here. There are so many variables at play here that it is difficult to point the finger at any single cause for the overrun. There are a lot of variables, some easier to control than others.

That's exactly the thinking they were hoping for from the uneducated masses.  You aren't thinking in a logical manner. 

The concept of "sunk costs" is difficult for some people to fathom, so politicians love to play on that.  Instead of asking for $15B, they ask for $8B to start and complete a project.  Sounds great when they show the cost over time, the break point that it pays for itself, and all that other "estimates based on a bad estimate" crap.

Then, when it's obvious the project is about to fail without more money (not a shock for those with eyes open), the pitch is "Do you really want to waste $8B we already spent?  Let's just add more money and get it finished!"

They never go back and revise those payback projections or cost over time, because the new estimates blow that analysis out of the water completely, and they can't justify the cost using the new numbers.

Sunk costs are gone.  They are spent.  You don't through good money after bad, as they say.  Now you have to start over and ask, "What is the additional money going to buy us?  What is the cost/benefit of adding more money?  What's the additional cost if we just stop?  Can we use that additional money better for other projects instead of creating an overpriced, underused, too expensive to operate train that doesn't go to the places it ought to?"

Don't ever fall for the "we don't want to waste the money already spent on a bad idea" appeal.  It's for suckers!

But what about the returns? Are we going to lose $3 billion dollars with no benefit or spend $10 billion (give or take) and get at least some benefit from a  rail system? It isn't just the case of we spent it, we might as well continue. The effects of this choice will be felt one way or another.