ITʻS TIME TO BAIL ON RAIL
Honolulu Civil Beat - April 4, 2022
In 1994, a 4-ton elephant named Tyke escaped its circus and stampeded through Honolulu, crushing two people to death and nearly killing another. Tyke was finally killed after officers shot her 86 times.
For the past 10 years another kind of white elephant — the rapid rail transit system — has plowed across Oahu and now is struggling to push into downtown. It’s time for the city to seriously consider putting this animal down, too.
In economics, white elephant projects are large-scale publicly financed infrastructure investments — think dams, bridges, stadiums, airports, or rails — that return a net negative social and economic return to the intended beneficiaries.
They are typically justified by the economic benefits of short-term GDP growth and employment generation and long-term enabling effects, like shorter transit times or new access to markets.
However, ultimately, they often benefit the politicians — and their affiliates — who push through such investments, gaining political, social and financial capital, but who leave office long before the project is complete, absolving them of responsibility and abandoning the cost burden to future generations.
Why Continue At All?
Honolulu’s rapid transit system, referred to colloquially as rail, is undeniably a white elephant project. To illustrate, consider rail’s many well-known problems: it is over budget and out of funding; it is past the deadline for completion; it has been poorly built; and it will require public sector subsidies for years after completion.
The Federal Transit Administration officials in Honolulu this week, who are investigating HART’s new plan, are asking “Have all the risks been considered?”
Instead, they should be asking: “Why continue at all?”
It’s not too late to abandon rail. Research has consistently shown that humans often insist on continuing a course of action despite rising negative outcomes because we cannot stand to see efforts thus far go to waste.
In behavioral economics it’s known as the sunk-cost fallacy. The city is suffering this affliction to the detriment of the people of Oahu.
There are other priorities to focus resources on rather than continuing to throw good money at a bad project. Stopping would if nothing else eliminate the opportunity cost of rail.
Hawaii’s multitude of immediate problems other than congestion — rampant and tragic homelessness, pothole ridden roads, hot and outdated school buildings, eroding beaches, climate change risks, inequity, etc. — deserve the full focus and resources of the city.
