In a new ‘State of HART’ address, the CEO said the agency has made huge strides. Board members cautioned against being too optimistic.

An official slide presentation on the new executive director’s performance cites plenty of achievements but no weaknesses.

UPDATED: Dean Hazama had served on the local volunteer rail oversight board for just over two years.

The retired Hawaiian Airlines executive joined the local oversight group in 2017 and saw rail’s ‘P3’ effort collapse.

After discussions with the Federal Transit Administration, the Honolulu mayor says his personal target is to get rail to the Honolulu civic center.

She also expressed hope that an exception allowing welders from the mainland to work in Hawaii should enable key wheel and track fixes to begin soon.

The trains may cause voltage swings as they leave the stations, so HART has agreed to install equipment to stabilize the power.

The city’s troubled rail project would receive much of the new revenue despite objections to that plan from some critics of rail.

Report by a committee of HART board members claims there may be hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue or cost savings to be had.

UPDATED: The FTA has been withholding the local transit project’s federal dollars for the past seven years as its struggles have mounted.