One generalization about the cost of rail is that it continues to grow without transparency, accountability or regulation of city officials. The draft EIS estimate for the project was $5.4 billion, and the Jacobs Oversight Report from the Federal Transit Administration is 2 percent higher ($5.288 billion) than the city's current budget of $5.172 billion. Both the FTA and city officials are happy that the numbers have been so close, considering the size of the project.

In general, it is big numbers that scare the average reader. A recent article mentioned that the cost of rail will be $4,000 per person in a Honolulu household. This article failed to mention that $4,000 is spread out over the years that the GET revenues are collected from 2007 to 2022. That comes out to around 50 cents per day.

For some people when every penny counts, 50 cents a day is a lot. However using GET revenues means that people who spend less, pay less. They benefit more from the rail project since they are the people who are most likely to use public transit. The cost of a car and especially fuel in Hawai'i is far more than any person worried about 50 cents a day could ever afford.

In 2007, $199 million was spent on congestion costs, and per peak hour traveler, it was $514. It is also little known that around 25 percent of the GET revenues will come from tourists to O'ahu and not from the citizenry.

So who is funding the rail? One source is the $1.4 billion from the FTA if we continue to show our commitment to the project and meet the requirements of the New Starts program that the federal government has begun to encourage mass transit rail projects like our own. This $1.4 billion cannot go to any other cause in Hawai'i. If we don't use it for this project, we lose it entirely. The GET revenues cannot be transferred to another cause either. These revenues have been legislatively earmarked for rail, and any transfer of funds to another cause would result in a legal conflict.

Some people are not against mass transit but they want something cheaper. Well, you get what you pay for. The hope is that the rail will have a quality high enough that people who have the choice of using private automobiles will choose rail over fossil-fuel-consuming cars that create numerous congestion costs in time, resources, carbon dioxide emissions, etc.

The end-all argument is the confident statement that it won't be worth it because it won't happen; and if it does, people won't use it. Then it won't be maintained and it will deteriorate, leaving an ugly vestigial mass transit mess on O'ahu. All I can say is, we'll see. Every mass transit project in the nation, in the world, has been fought and decried before it is built and right up until the day it is opened for use. If previous mass transit projects are any testament to this one, people do use it — and what's more, they like it.

It's simply a matter of hard choices, because having an easy choice between using the car or taking the bus is a luxury of the rich and carefree. The problem of the average person is that of economics, unlimited wants with limited resources. O'ahu's population continues to grow, and we cannot support a 1-to-1 ratio in cars to people. On O'ahu that ratio is higher than 1-to-1.

We live on an island with limited space, and fossil fuels are nonrenewable, in high demand and disappearing at an alarming rate. We are stuck in an economic and environmental corner not dissimilar to being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wonder how long it will be before those opposed to rail realize that the situation is no longer livable.

Kara Takasaki is a recent Punahou School graduate attending Tufts University. She was a summer intern for the city's Rapid Transit Division. She wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.