Humanity is threatened by a global-warming crisis. Canada, facing the crisis of global financial meltdown, is looking for ways to keep people working. The time is ripe, it seems, for an era of massive, green public-works projects.

Projects like a 12-kilometre SkyTrain subway line connecting Vancouver to the University of British Columbia.

Imagine that train packed with smiling, eco-guilt-free students zipping on and off their secluded campus by the sea. The UBC subway line, which would run through the heart of the city, is already on the drawing board, slated for 2020. Provincial and Vancouver political leaders have voiced their enthusiasm. The price tag is set at $2.8-billion.

Well, hold on there. Patrick Condon, senior researcher at the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC, has run further numbers and believes he has a more sensible plan.
Instead of building that train, you could give every new UBC undergrad the keys to their very own Prius automobile. Year after year. Forever.

That’s right. As Prof. Condon calculates in a new study, you’d start by putting the $2.8-billion price of the train into a trust that earns 6-per-cent interest. That would generate $168-million a year - about enough to give every full-time undergrad entering UBC a basic $25,000 hybrid vehicle. (No leather seats - we’re in crisis mode, you know.) Now wouldn’t the planet - not to mention UBC’s recruitment officers - like that approach more than just one measly new subway line? Read the complete Post.