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BY BOBBIE SLATER – The Porter Report (link is below) is a realistic appraisal of the City’s financial plans, although somewhat excessively positive about the project. However, you will read some excerpts such as,
“At this time, there is no additional capacity in the Project financing plan to fund Project cost increases or to mitigate other adverse events.”
How many times has the City told us that we have a billion dollar contingency fund?
How many cost overruns have we already had?
“Cash balances are minimal and debt service coverage is low.”
Didn’t the mayor just tell us that the chances were next to zero that we would ever have to borrow additional money?
Or another,
“The City provides highly-utilized transit services, but experienced high growth in locally-funded subsidies (10.9 percent annually, 2005-2010), and has not kept up with fleet replacement needs, indicated by an average bus fleet age of 10.2 years.”
Yes, we have a highly utilized bus service, so why are we cutting service so we can build a train? There is only one explanation why the city is cutting bus service: to show FTA that we can afford a train.
We are the only ones that can stop this travesty!
Read:
funds for the bus system which is very effective and highly utilized are being diverted for rail. People are now having to take 3 buses where they used to take one. People are walking farther to get to bus stops. This is just wrong. contractors who stand to make big money on this insane project are the ones who want this to go through. Their own numbers say that traffic by 2020 will be reduced by 40,000 vehicles. By 2020 this will amount to about 1 percent. 6 billion dollars we do not have to reduce traffic by 1 percent is not the answer. Rail is a swindle perpetrated on the tax payers of Hawaii. If there is any common sense in your head at all you should be against rail. I think even a child would be able to see through the subterfuge. We must stop this now before it is too late. Caldwell is in the pocket of developers and big money. A vote for him is a vote against your own self interests. Do not shoot yourself in the foot. Vote for the candidate against rail Ben Cayetano.
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