You’ve got to check out this presentation featuring the working prototype of a new type of mobile computer gadget they’re calling “sixth sense”. It’s pretty amazing.

With the City Council ready to take another step towards approval of the budget with funding for the first big construction contracts for the rail transit system, it’s interesting to see this article describing “10 cities with great transit.”

While rail is featured, most of the rail systems are not the type Honolulu is planning. Just look at the photo of the new trains in Charlotte at the beginning of the story. The trains are running at street level. The type of train currently proposed by the Hannemann administration and backed by the council cannot run at ground level, even in those areas where this would seem more appropriate than tracks running on large concrete platforms. So enjoy the photos and descriptions of what we’re not going to have here if plans proceed apace.

Here’s another somewhat overlooked point. Mayor Hannemann has proposed beginning construction even before the federal environmental impact assessment process has been completed and well before there’s any commitment of federal funding.

This means that for now, at least, the rail is being entirely funded by the city. To do this, Hannemann proposes a billion-dollars of general obligation bonds. As I understand it, once the city goes ahead in this manner, this phase of the project will not be eligible for retroactive federal funding.

Some believe the mayor is bullying ahead in this way to end run the environmental process by awarding the first contracts and locking in his particular choice of technology without waiting for the results of the city’s environmental review. If federal dollars aren’t involved, he doesn’t have to wait for the process to be completed because it doesn’t apply to city-funded projects. But it also means that if substantive problems are found and not addressed adequately, we may be stuck paying for the entire rail project without federal assistance.

That’s not a pretty picture.

Did you catch this in Derrick DePledge’s long review this morning of the issues surrounding Lingle’s plan to furlough state workers?

The Lingle administration and union leaders have been in talks for months, but the state has yet to make any formal offers. Under state labor law, the administration needs at least one of the county mayors to sign off on proposals to the HGEA and UPW, and a state Department of Education official and a University of Hawai’i official to endorse proposals to the HSTA and UHPA.

It’s been that way with Lingle’s whole approach to the budget this year. Lots of talk, lots of blame throwing, but a paucity of specifics.

So now we find out that it isn’t that the unions have been uncooperative. The state simply hasn’t put any offers on the table. Go figure.