A Waste Of Three Years

I wrote last week in this Blog that there was "some really good stuff that I uncovered that should make some bureaucrats run for the hills if my preliminary reading is correct!" Well not only should the MDOT staffers run, but they better hide as well.

I and my former colleagues on STOPDRTP, my friends with OJIBWAY NOW! and thousands of Windsorites have wasted three years of our lives and seen millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on our fight against DRTP.

Remember my Blog on October 19 "Predicting the Future" about the 1971 article about a second tunnel joining Detroit and Windsor perhaps being needed within 10 years to handle an anticipated increase in traffic between the two cities. I found another one, this time a 300 + page Report.

A Report on the "Michigan-Ontario Railroad Border Crossing Infrastructure" was completed in December 1991. Unless this Report was mentioned somewhere in the tons of Bi-national Reports papers (and if it was, then so much the worse) I am shocked that MDOT has been sitting on a document that effectively killed a DRTP-type project in 1991! If this kind of a project made no sense, then why was this not brought forward right away. Why did DRTP have to be examined and only now eliminated? Is this all part of the stall so that the border will never get fixed and Sarnia/Port Huron becomes the crossing of choice to our region's detriment?

Frankly, if I were the Mayor and Council of Detroit, I would demand to see a copy of it and then go and visit the Governor and State Legislators in Lansing. I would want the answer from MDOT why my City was being discriminated against!

The Canadian Governments should be outraged that MDOT did not give them this Report or did they have it also hidden away somewhere?

The Governor and Prime Minister need to reconsider immediately the value of DRIC while the Michigan legislators need to start their hearings immediately and ask what else is there that has not been revealed.

On top of all of that, the border crossing traffic projections in the Report are of considerable interest. Actual facts prove that they are absolutely wrong!

How then can one justify spending several billion dollars on each side of the river for a new crossing based on traffic projections by the Bi-National engineers that have already once been revised downward. How much confidence should we have in their estimates. If their numbers are wrong, as I have said, the new bridge goes broke and takes the other crossings down with it!

Some background: Back in the mid-1980's Beztac (yup the arena Beztak) in partnership with the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority and the Windsor Harbour Commission and then separately MDOT a few years later proposed to construct a new double stack tunnel for trains and convert the existing twin tube railroad tunnel to truck use.

A Report was prepared examining this and other projects. Here are their conclusions about the Tunnel project:

• conversion would be very expensive for the value received
• Ambassador Bridge truck roadbed capacity will be adequate until 2005 at the very least (more on 2005 later)
• "no benefit" is assumed for a conversion or rather minimal benefits obtained for truck conversion expenditure
• conversion is predicated on drawing truck traffic away from the Ambassador Bridge
• Beztak assumed capturing 50% of the existing Bridge and Tunnel traffic for its financials
• it could be a premature expenditure of funds on a project that would provide marginal truck only capacity at best
• relatively long payback
• most important problem is the issue of access roads
• it is unlikely that US Customs would provide separate staffing at a facility so close to the Ambassador Bridge Plaza
• truck traffic would encounter significant neighbourhood resistance in Detroit
• because of the width of the rail tunnels, an American Association of Highway and Transportation officials waiver would be required
• single one-way lane would not provide much margin for errors by drivers
• removal of burning or incapacitated vehicles could pose serious difficulties
• the financial analysis of the Beztak deal asked how realistic it would be to assume that 50 % of the business could be captured and said it was "highly unlikely" given the Bridge's competitive response
• inadequate staffing of inspection booths caused the great majority of recorded delays
• the converted tunnel would provide a poor level of service given the single narrow lane and would require very careful driving
• to recover the full cost of the conversion a toll of $20.60 per truck would be required compared with current competitive average truck toll of $13.60
• it is not possible to estimate any actual benefits of the project
• it is likely that truckers would prefer to use other crossings
• costs of the conversion are excessive when compared to what the money would buy in alternative projects
• the cost buys a truck only, extremely restricted century old facility and would be a signiifcant part of the price of totally new bridge
• roadbed capacity provided is substandard and will not accommodate automobiles
• based on tunnel construction and access costs, and on the narrow single lane, the project is not thought to offer a good value
• it would not allow for auto use and the money might be better spent on a new bridge
• for the truck conversion project, the conclusion is that the benefits would be zero
• it is not recommended that the tunnel conversion be considered at this time

Here are their comments on traffic projections:

• Ambassador Bridge system could reach capacity in some of its elements such as inspection booth numbers by 1996
• Detroit-Windsor Tunnel will reach capacity by 1994 and there will be a need for additional capacity by 2000.
• Ambassador Bridge's roadbed capacity will be adequate until 2005

The whole episode troubles me. I cannot figure on what is going on other than an effort to move traffic away from this region. If the traffic numbers can be that wrong based on real facts, , then we need to stop and rethink the undelying assumptions of DRIC. Rather than being plugged up, the Bridge is operating at around 50% + capacity. With those numbers, who needs a new crossing?