As much as I butt heads with Ben regarding his blind loyalty to Hillary (that's an entirely different post) Ben is 'spot on' here and the facts he mentioned need to amplified, underlined and bold-faced.  Full Stop.

In the end, after the politicians playing all the cards in their hand (all the smoke-and-mirror, promises, bullying, land re-zoning, bribes and outright lying) it is now clearly evident that the Rail was never primarily about getting commuters quickly to work.  
That was just the sizzle selling the pork.  
The Rail 'Con-Job' was a collusion of the new 'BIG FOUR' (Wealthy Land Speculators with inside information, the Construction Oligarchs, the Ruling Princeocrats (Payola) and the Unions (always looking to create billable busywork, needed or not)) to not only support their parasitic raison d'être but to line their own pockets regardless of the cost of paving over paradise.   Mufi, Caldwell, Colbert M and Colleen H are all local boys', supposed 'keiki o ka 'aina.   Tsk, tsk!