InfraStrategies provided strategic and financial advisory services to the City of Honolulu and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) for the planning, design, engineering, and construction of the Honolulu Rail Transit Project (HRTP), Honolulu’s $8.2 billion fully-elevated and automated transit line, connecting western Oahu with Downtown Honolulu, Ala Moana Center, and eventually Waikiki and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The project is currently under construction, with nearly 50 percent of the elevated guideway fully completed. The nation’s first automated light rail transit system is being constructed using a combination of contract delivery methods including design-bid-build, design-build, design-build-operate-and-maintain, and manufacture-install-maintain.

InfraStrategies staff have worked with HART for nearly a decade to bring the HRTP from conceptual plans through to construction, serving as the Program Management Support Consultant to HART, providing key management positions for HART, performing managerial and technical advisory services, and offering support with procurement and federal requirements. Team members performed a strategic delivery analysis of the two remaining large capital components of the HRTP project: Center City Guideway and Stations and Pearl Highlands Garage and Transit Center. As part of this work, we assisted HART with a comprehensive analysis of a P3 project delivery structure and financial plan, including a comprehensive risk assessment, schedule evaluation, and long-term financial analysis, including operations and maintenance. As a result of this analysis, HART decided to pursue an innovative P3 to complete construction and operate and maintain the HRTP under a long-term DBFOM concession. A key risk factor with respect to selection of a delivery approach for HART focused on issues associated with the relationship between HART and the City of Honolulu for DB and O&M responsibilities, respectively. This has proved to be an obstacle to the project moving forward as a DBFOM.

In addition to serving as an advisor, our team assisted HART with the development of a comprehensive Recovery Plan as required by the FTA, which is providing $1.5 billion in CIG funds to the project. We also worked closely with agency staff and the Board to draft and then finalize a 5-year Strategic Plan for adoption by the HART Board of Directors.