Honolulutraffic.Com

I. INTRODUCTION

This litigation represents a challenge to the construction of a 20-mile, high-speed rail system (the “Project”) from the western portion of Oahu through the downtown area of Honolulu, Hawaii. Honolulu has been unsuccessfully struggling to cope with traffic congestion since the midl960s. That was when Congress passed the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, later amended in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1978, which mandated the creation of Metropolitan Planning boards to develop long-range plans for efficient public transportation. See 49 U.S.C. §§ 5303 and 5304. Honolulu is now reportedly the second-most congested metropolitan area in the nation. Courtney Subramanian, Top 10 U.S. Cities with the Worst Traffic, Time (May 7, 2013), news-feed.time.eom/2013/05/07/top-10-u-s-eities-with-the-worst-traffic/.

In earlier decades, Honolulu developed plans for a rail system and later for a bus system that never came to fruition. Its efforts are documented in the Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) that was prepared for the project we deal with in this case. A survey in 2004 showed broad public support for the concept of a rail system, and in 2005 the…