The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) has received the Jacobs Engineering Risk Refresh Report, prepared on behalf of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) on the Honolulu Rail Transit Project. Jacobs is the Project Management Oversight Consultant (PMOC).
The report shows an FTA cost estimate for the project of $8.3 billion. It also recommends a Revenue Service Date of September 2026.
“The fact that the estimate of the PMOC, using a totally unique and independent top-down analysis of the project, is only 1.6% above HART’s current project cost estimate, is a strong endorsement for the risk management and cost control measures HART has put in place over the past two years,” said HART Executive Director and CEO Andrew Robbins. “No longer is there talk of runaway costs and overruns.”
Robbins pointed out that the report suggests that HART has the potential to benefit from significant cost-saving measures in the City Center section of the project, which has yet to be procured.
This, according to Robbins, “reinforces HART’s plan to pursue a public private partnership to provide cost and schedule certainty. We will continue to manage the project to the HART estimates of $8.165 billion and a start date of December 2025.
“With more than $4 billion worth of work yet to perform on the rail project, HART is highly confident in its ability to generate cost savings that will more than offset the difference in the PMOC estimate.”
Robbins said HART will work with the FTA to reflect the recommendations made in the report, and to update its Recovery Plan, currently awaiting FTA approval.