Rising material prices are already having an impact on the yet-to-be-built Honolulu rail project. Civil Beat’s Michael Levine is at a meeting of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. 

Inside Honolulu reports:

HART is on the verge of another multi-million change order associated with delays versus a too-aggressive construction schedule.

The Project Oversight and Finance Committees are discussing a new $16 million change order. This one stems from escalating costs for materials like steel, and doesn’t include a delay claim that should be coming at some point soon.

Deputy Project Manager Frank Doyle said when the construction contract was let in February 2010, bidders were told a notice to proceed was expected two months later in April because HART expected to be granted permission to start final design. That permission didn’t come from the FTA until late 2011, and the notice to proceed wasn’t issued until January 2012.

“We were off by 23 months, just two months out,” board member Keslie Hui said. “It’s taken 11 times as long as we thought it would to get this done.”

Don Horner said the project got off to a slow start but appears to have put some of these problems in the rearview mirror. Doyle said the plan going forward is that no new construction contracts will be put out until after a Full Funding Grant Agreement.

Toru Hamayasu, sitting at the testimony table rather than alongside board members as he did in all prior HART meetings, said there was no monetary risk from awarding the contract early because the increase in materials cost would have been factored into the cost of the contract eventually anyway.

Dan Grabauskas, Hamayasu’s replacement as CEO, pointed out that it’s important to set reasonable expectations in the public’s mind, even if there’s no monetary impact of awarding contracts early.