@Blaine Fergerstrom:  All the taxpayers of the United States of America paid for those projects through Federal Funds which covered 90% of the cost, so if you were to calculate how much each Hawaii resident paid for those projects, it's significantly less than Oahu residents are paying for the rail project (e.g. H-3 cost $1 Billion which comes out to each U.S. taxpayer paying $3-4 each versus each Oahu resident paying $7,000-10,000 per person for rail).  As for a tunnel to Wai'anae, again all the taxpayers in the USA would pay 90% of the cost and the rest would be paid by all the residents of the State of Hawaii.  My point being it's a significantly larger burden that the rail project is placing on the resources of the people on Oahu than a project covered under the Federal Highway Funds would.