All infrastructure projects take funds that could potentially benefit everyone and give it to a portion of the population. By your logic the H-1 rehab ($42 million) should not have occurred because it did not benefit the windward side, or the H-3 freeway ($1.86 billion in today’s dollars) should not have been built because it does not benefit Ewa residents.

All our infrastructure projects directly benefit only a portion of the island, though we all benefit from them, if indirectly. Rail is no different.

What is different is that H-3 was paid for with 90% federal funds and rail is closer to 15% federal funds. The problem is not that funds are being spent that benefit a portion of the island. Rails problems are ballooning costs, mismanagement, and (unpaid) benefits that developers receive. The problem is that we were sold rail that would bridge two major population centers and what we received was a system that starts in the middle of an empty field and ends where no one wants to go.