Board members of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation are seeking approval to spend an additional $27.1 million to added safety gates at the 21 stations along the route. These gates were not initially budgeted into the elevated rail system, but would help to prevent passengers from falling onto the tracks. Executive Director for HART, Dan Grabauskas, stated, "It was intended to be that there would be platform screen gates or at least the possibility of it, but no one ever budgeted for it and I don’t know why. But it’s the right thing to do.”
The rail project has a contingency fund of $658 million which would cover this expense if approved. However, critics of the rail project warn that another costly budget oversight that has not been addressed is a lack of a power-failure backup system which would allow the driver-less trains to return to the nearest station in the event of a power outage.
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 9-5-2013, www.staradvertiser.com
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