Bureaucratic Empire-Building

Lots of good border stories coming out of the News Herald these days. It's the Downriver Michigan newspaper. Check out the excerpts from the story below

What I like about what I read is that it expresses an interesting view being put forward by the bureaucrats: while "do-nothing" is an alternative because border traffic may be going down or rather, may not be increasing as was predicted, we are going to build a bridge anyway since otherwise a "private" proponent might do it!

Heaven forbid that private enterprise spend its money rather than taxpayer money. Oh and no mention that the new bridge could bankrupt all of the other SW Ontario crossings since there is not enough volume.

Let's end the Bridge Co. "monopoly" is their first cry although they must have forgotten that the Bi-national Engineers proved there never was one.

And then my real favourite: redundancy. That came back in vogue after about a year of hiding. We should spend hundreds of millions by building a new crossing to protect the border structures when "reverse customs" would do a better and cheaper job of it! (Actually it's $3 billion plus if you add in the cost of infrastructure, roads and plazas)

“Redundancy” is a red herring. There were 4 targets on Sept.11 hit simultaneously. Subways and buses were hit simultaneously in London. What makes us think that only ONE border crossing would be hit and not all of them in southern Ontario simultaneously.

The need for redundancy is dealt with by “hardening the target” i.e., additional passive & overt security measures (radiation detectors, perimeter security, airspace security) independent of the actual customs inspections with the ability to stop traffic prior to the crossing. “Redundancy”, like “capacity” has been an evolving argument: they have extended redundancy to mean additional roadway routes to the border as well as additional crossings.

It's odd that we have not had a discussion about what are the cost effective limits of redundancy. How much shall we spend? How many new crossings are enough to build to make us secure in Windsor/Detroit---one, three, more? I do not remember hearing anyone crying for a redundant electricity or pipeline or communication capabilities or even a redundant municipal headquarters/city hall.

Let's call redundancy what it is: a phony issue to reach a pre-ordained conclusion, a public bridge at any cost!

Now if only a part of another story in the News Herald came true, we might have a happy end to the border mess: State Sen. Bruce Patterson (R-Canton Twp.) vowed to fight to have all state funding for the study examined and possibly cut.

International trade drives effort to create options
By Bobby Ampezzan, The News-Herald

PUBLISHED: January 1, 2006

DETROIT — "International trade" is the issue behind plans to build another border crossing near the city's downtown area, said Mohammed Alghurabi, senior project manager for the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Despite being the pre-eminent corridor for binational traffic in the Northern Hemisphere and the nexus for the largest volume of goods exchanged in the world, Detroit and Windsor share only two border crossings for auto and truck traffic — the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel — and only one, the bridge, handles trade...

According to the group's analyses, there are a number of reasons for another area border crossing.

First, according to projections calculated by the Corradino Group, the chief U.S. consultants for the project, travel demands in the Detroit-Windsor corridor will reach unstable conditions — or about 4,500 vehicles an hour — in 10 years.

Ten years later, by 2025, traffic demand will have surpassed maximum border crossing capacity, or about 5,000 vehicles an hour.

But at public meetings in June, a number of people voiced disbelief that trade and passenger traffic would increase substantially in the future, citing U.S. Department of Transportation figures that show decreasing trade traffic since 2000.

Many also said the decline of Michigan's manufacturing base, the presence of casinos on both sides of the river and improvements to the Ambassador Bridge expected to expedite customs and toll booth processing was reason to expect slow or no growth in border traffic.

But project officials also suggested the area needs "redundancy" in the event of a catastrophe.

That issue recently was addressed Downriver by former federal counter-terrorism "czar" Richard Clarke, who called border crossings in the area "single-point failures" — a systemic failure at a single location.

Many proponents of the project also have said another benefit of redundancy comes in the form of economic competition: Currently, truck transportation businessman Manuel Moroun has a monopoly on Detroit River crossings worth $60 million annually...

While the partnership, after nearly a $17 million study, has reserved the right to "do nothing," Mark Butler, communications director for Transport Canada, has said each milestone in the process makes that alternative less likely.

Alghurabi has said, "If we choose to do nothing, then the likelihood is a private proponent will build (a crossing)."