There's no doubt Honolulu's planned $5.4 billion elevated commuter rail line will create jobs. What's still unclear is how many jobs will be created, when they'll start and how long they'll last.

The city says construction of the 20-mile train project will generate an average of 10,100 jobs a year for nine years starting next year, including 4,200 direct jobs primarily in the high-paying construction trades. That could help provide a boost to the local economy, which is expected to shrink through 2010.

However, a recent study by the University of Hawai'i Economic Research Organization predicts the city's rail project will generate at most half that many direct jobs — a peak of 2,000 in 2014. That suggests the near-term economic impact of rail transit could be significantly less than the city predicts.

The city's average annual direct job count of 4,200 seems high, said UH economist Carl Bonham. Still, rail combined with other potential economic stimulus projects, such as a six-year, $4 billion state highway modernization plan, could create as many as 5,700 direct jobs, according to the research organization.

These projects won't provide significant stimulus to the state's $60 billion economy in the near term, according to UHERO. Still, those projects combined could add as much as a half-percentage point of annual growth to the overall economy over the long term.

"That's not small potatoes," Carl Bonham said. "Last year we shrank about a quarter (percent) in real income. When your (economy) is shrinking, every quarter to a half (percentage point of growth) helps."

In 2010, the highway projects combined with rail would create just 860 additional jobs. However, that figure would rise to 5,700 jobs in 2013. That would push the state's overall construction job count to 36,530, which would be just shy of the 38,000 to 39,000 construction jobs that existed in 2007 and 2008. Without the projects, the number of construction jobs statewide is expected to dip to 30,830 in 2011, according to UHERO.

JOBS WILL STILL BE LOST

At this point, it's unclear whether both projects will happen. The House has approved the highway modernization plan, but Republicans oppose the bill because it would impose tax and fee increases on drivers. Gov. Linda Lingle has warned she may veto the plan if the tax increases aren't delayed until the economy improves. Meanwhile, the train project has been approved by voters, but has yet to receive federal funds or approval of an environmental impact study.

The economic stimulus created from building the projects will essentially come from transferring money from households into the construction sector. That's because about $4 billion of the rail project's price tag will be funded by a half-percentage point increase in O'ahu's general excise tax. Another $1.4 billion in project funds is expected to come from the federal government.

Even if the projects go through, the work won't arrive soon enough to save thousands of jobs in Hawai'i's construction sector, which has been struggling for about a year, said Hawaii Carpenters Union financial secretary Ron Taketa. About 42 percent, or 3,150, of the union's members are without work following last year's slowdown in the private construction market.

"Those numbers are expected to get worse because all forecasts indicate that this year will be worse than last year," Taketa said.

TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT

Putting construction workers back to work is good for the overall economy, he added. Skilled laborers in Hawai'i can earn $80,000 to $90,000 a year, and the average construction wage is about $65,000 a year, according to UHERO.

"The construction paycheck is just the first stop in that stimulus money," Taketa said. "From there it goes on to the retail stores and the restaurants and shopping centers and eventually to the car dealerships, so all segments of our economy really benefit when the construction industry is doing well."

While much of the focus on rail has been on job creation, the larger economic and social impacts of the project will take decades to develop, said Paul Brewbaker, principal at TZ Economics. Part of the purpose of rail is to increase mobility and change development patterns.

"Any construction project is going to generate jobs and that's not really as important in this case to be thinking about as the consequences for the patterns of urbanization over the next half-century," Brewbaker said.

The transit-oriented development is expected to foster higher-density development in train station communities that could reduce urban sprawl and urban encroachment on agricultural and conservation lands. Brewbaker likened the rail project to major freeway projects undertaken more than 50 years ago that connected urban Honolulu with West O'ahu, Central O'ahu and the Windward side.

"We don't think about the jobs at all now looking back over the last 50 years when we think about what the freeways meant," he said. "We think about how they shaped the city as it evolved."