EDITORIAL
Transit tax just a first step for O'ahu

The Legislature's expected decision to approve an increase in the excise tax of half a percentage point for transit may turn out to be a political compromise that satisfies no one.

The good news, from the standpoint of Honolulu officials who support mass transit, is that this optional tax would enable them to prove to Uncle Sam that they have a "dedicated" source of transit funding.

That dedicated source is crucial to winning any kind of federal support for the system.

The question, however, is whether the 0.5 percentage point tax hike will be enough to take care of the local share of the costs of building a rail transit system. (The tax is estimated to be worth $150 million a year — statewide — and would last for 15 years.)

This question cannot be fully answered until Honolulu decides what transit system it will build and how much federal support it can garner.

Honolulu officials had hoped that the counties would get the option of imposing a 1 percent tax on top of the existing state 4 percent general excise tax.

It appears that the decision of a House-Senate conference committee to go with the 0.5 percent tax was a political compromise, pure and simple. The House was pushing for 1 percent, while the Senate offered 0.5 percent or 1 percent if it was controlled by the state, not the counties.

In exchange for doing away with the unpalatable state-controlled 1 percentage point tax, the House went along with the Senate's 0.5 percent plan.

City officials were also slightly disappointed that the tax authorization was for 15 years rather than the 20 years it sought. But that is a small problem, since the Legislature can (and likely will) extend the life of the tax if and when the county chooses to impose it.

The larger question should be: Is this enough to launch and manage a transit alternative that makes sense and will do a realistic job of easing the burden on urban Honolulu commuters?

Mayor Mufi Hannemann says he is determined to make this compromise plan work in a way that will bring O'ahu commuters genuine relief.

His determination is encouraging. The next step should be to come up with a transit plan that is sensible, cost-efficient and appealing to a broad cross-section of the community.

In short, this tax is intended to launch the right transit system, not just any system.

Working with the City Council, the Hannemann administration must avoid any temptation to go forward with a "since they passed it, we might as well raise and spend it" approach.

Using this new tax to build a truncated system that fits the budget but not the needs of commuters will be little more than a make-work project that would be unfair to taxpayers.