As we celebrate this holiday season with family, loved ones and friends, I wanted to share some of this year's major accomplishments here at HART, while looking forward to the milestones to come in 2020. Since I stepped into the role of Executive Director and CEO in 2017, I am proud to say the project has maintained its current budget and schedule and is on the way to an interim opening of the first ten miles of the rail system, from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium, in Fall 2020.
Since the HART Board and the City approved going forward with a Public-Private Partnership (P3) project delivery method for the last leg of the rail project, 2019 saw us steadily through the procurement process and we now have multiple bidders engaged in preparing proposals to be submitted in early 2020, with eventual award to support a full project completion by December 2025.
With this project completion date in mind, we have developed a revised implementation plan for the City Center Utility Relocation contract, with a particular emphasis on the Dillingham corridor where there are considerable challenges in relocating several utility services. This revised plan is designed to proceed more rapidly so as to optimize the follow-on activities associated with constructing the guideway and stations.
Today, if you travel along the westernmost portion of the twenty-mile alignment you can see the first nine stations are almost complete. We now have eight trains on island, nearly half the fleet-there will be 20 trains when the project begins full service. These stations and trains, together with the progression of installation and testing of the core systems being provided by Hitachi Rail, indicate that HART and the City are on-track to commence interim operation of the rail system from East Kapolei to Aloha Stadium by this time next year.
In addition, we are planning the next HART Community Train Day to take place in early February 2020 which, for the very first time, we will be opening up Halaulani (Leeward Community College Station) for public viewing. We will be announcing that event date very shortly, so please join us if you can!
Most of all, we would like to send a heartfelt mahalo to everyone who has endured our construction work throughout the many communities situated along our 20-mile alignment. Thank you for your patience as we build this world-class rail system for people to enjoy for generations to come.
We hope you are enjoying the holidays and wish everyone a banner year in 2020, with great anticipation and excitement for our accomplishments in the year ahead!
With much aloha,
Andrew S. Robbins
Executive Director and C.E.O.
Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation
