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Wednesday, March 28, 2012 1937 - 2012 · Celebrating 75 Years Orono Weekly Times - 5 Port Granby rehabilitation project finally underway The contract to upgrade a 1.6 km stretch of Elliott Road in Newtonville, from a single lane dirt track to a nine meter wide two lane asphalt surface roadway has been tendered. The estimated cost range provided by the proponents of the project for the Elliott Road reconstruction is between $9 million and $12 million. "The road will be built to a very high standard," Jimi Arey, Senior Project Manager for the Port Granby Project, told residents at a public meeting on Wednesday evening. The meeting, which was held at the Newtonville Community Hall, was to discuss the status and developments of the project to move 450,000 cubic metres of low level radioactive waste from its current location, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, to an engineered long term storage mound north of Lakeshore Road. Port Granby Project has been allocated approximately $273 million of the $1.28 billion committed by the federal government to clean up historic low level radioactive waste in the Port Hope area. The 1.6 km section of Elliott Road will be used for the next eight years to haul construction material to and from the long term waste storage site to be built at Port Granby, and crosses seven water courses and two railway tracks. Arey admitted at Wednesday's meeting that the CP overpass will be a major constraint to the new road which will be restricted to a single lane at that overpass. Upgrades to the overpass will include the installation of steel bars on the tunnel wings, to protect the integrity of the bridge. The CN level crossing will be improved to a full standard signalized crossing. "No vehicles will cross the railway unless CN is present," Arey assured residents at the meeting. "All parties are now happy with the design of the road," Arey told residents. "The road is relatively expensive road," he added, "but it is better to have it expensive and safe." The road will be turned over to the municipality when the project is complete. Portion of Elliott Road in Newtonville slated for a upgrade of upwards of 12 million dollars. From The House At The Centre Of The Universe by Tracy Tonkinson Still no cure for the common cold after googling countless statistics on fuel cells and regenerative braking, service costs and reliability charts, we headed out to sample the best of the offerings. Toyota has long been a favourite in our family for its reliability, comfort and customer friendly dealerships, but wanting to support the Canadian economy we had hoped that the Chevy Volt would turn out to be a real winner in the electric hybrid stable of offerings. Unfortunately, with recalls on 8,000 Volts for fear of battery fires and a starting price of $41,000, we were forced to conclude buying a Volt was a little too much for the House exchequer to stand right now. Added to that is the disappointment over the reception we have experienced in GM dealerships over the years, which has been woeful in terms of customer service and making you feel like you are valued as a potential purchaser. In one dealership we went to a while ago we were left standing in the showroom for what seemed like an hour and then approached by someone who looked like they had been living on the streets of Bowmanville for a year. Not the most auspicious of starts to a car purchase negotiation. Needless to say we walked out of the showroom without buying so much as a key chain. As the choices narrowed, we came back to the originator of the hybrid vehicle industry, Toyota. Getting into the new Prius was like sitting in some kind of space shuttle. Press the power switch and the dashboard lights up with all kinds of fancy gizmos and technological data. But the proof of the pudding of course is always in the test drive. Driving to the highway the car was quiet even with the gasoline engine running. Once on the 401 the pick up was amazing and a car that we had rejected so many years ago looked like a real winner. Watching the litres used per 100 kilometres driven figure drop from 6.1 to 5.4 by the time we pulled back into the dealership, we were almost giddy with excitement. As it turned out what I was actually giddy with was a stinking cold that I had avoided all winter; a cold that has no cure but time. And here is where the contrast was brought into stark relief for us. Even as humanity has produced a car packed with more technology than you will find in the International Space Station and looking like something from the deck of the Star Ship Enterprise inside, our weekend consisted of the purchase of super science and the realisation that no matter how smart our smart cars may be, as human beings we are at the mercy of the microbe and we still have no cure for the common cold. CHURCH DIRECTORY Orono United Church with Reverend Ceri Rees 111 Church Street N. Orono 905-485-5502 orono.uc@rogers.com Sunday April, 1st - PALM SUNDAY 10:30 am serivce HOLY WEEK SERVICES April 5th- Maundy Thursday service at 7 p.m April 6th - Good Friday Service at 10 a.m April 8th - Son-rise service at Orono Cemetery at 6:30 a.m April 8th - Easter Sunday service at 10:30 a.m Easter Bonnet parade - Wear a hat to join in! Everyone welcome - Wheelchair accessible Anglican Churches Rev. Ann Smith St. Saviour's - Orono 23 Mill Street · 905-485-5594 9:30 a.m. - Worship, Sunday School Y outh Group · Holy Communion - 1st & 3rd Sunday · Morning Prayer - 2nd & 4th Sunday · Coffee and Fellowship to follow. St. George's - Newcastle 250 Mill St. S. · 905-987-2019 8 a.m. - Communion 11:00 a.m. - Worship , Sunday School · Holy Communion 1st & 3rd Sunday · Morning Prayer 2nd & 4th Sunday Coffee and Fellowship to follow. www.stsavioursorono.ca This weekend was one of contrasts here at the House. After wrestling with the economic viability of keeping going a comfortable, but ultimately prohibitively expensive car, what with repairs and oil tanker amounts of gasoline, we bit the bullet and went to explore some hybrid automotive options. I have to confess that years ago, when the first Prius vehicles showed up on Canadian roads, I dismissed the smug first adopters as mugs for believing that paying a premium for the fad of a hybrid car could possibly pay off. Of course that was way back in the heady days when gas was 49 cents a litre. Now that I found myself weeping every time I went to the gas station it was time to check out this fad. As we never do anything here at the House without spending months researching, there had been many tire kicking trips to new and used car dealers over the last year and