DRIC And The Blue Water Bridge History

Is DRIC more than just a project to build another crossing in Detroit/Windsor? Is there a bigger story that the Michigan Legislators need to investigate at their hearings?

Is the DRIC exercise that has lasted years already--and is to last longer--that has cost millions--and is to cost millions more--doomed to fail no matter what and then to be shelved?

If so, what are the consequences to South East Michigan and South West Ontario?

There is a competition going on between Windsor/Detroit and Sarnia/Port Huron to be the major North American border crossing point. I already reported previously that U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Twp., said "the Blue Water Bridge could challenge the Ambassador Bridge as the No. 1 crossing point between the U.S. and Canada." Miller helped secure $43 million in federal funds to build a new U.S.-side inspections plaza for the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron.

Several years ago at a conference, former Windsor acting CAO and University of Windsor Professor Alfie Morgan stated that "If we don't (preserve our market) Sarnia could replace us in no time," Morgan said. He said "Sarnia's plan [is] to position itself as the Canadian trade route link. Their objective is to bring the NAFTA Superhighway to the doors of Sarnia."

As you know, I have also posted a number of items about the east-west corridor for the auto industry as described by Dennis DesRosiers that by-passes Windsor/Detroit.

What is prompting this posting today is discussion I had with a reader the other day who asked me why is it that Sarnia can have a 103 km (64 miles) expressway built from the Blue Water Bridge to Highway 401 in London while Windsor cannot have a 14 km road built from the end of Highway 401 to the Ambassador Bridge. I tried to explain about the mistake made 50 years ago when the Highway was not connected here because of local bickering. I had no real answer when I was asked why the Senior Levels were still making the same mistake today and giving in to local bickering so that a road to the border was not being built yet. He asked me "Haven't the Senior Levels learned yet?"

Strange isn't it. When I first started being involved with the border, it was US (Windsorites and Council) against THEM (the Senior Levels) with their JMC Report and 9-Point Plan. Now it seems it is US and THEM against Our Mayor and Council.

Sarnia has had some good fortune in improving their border crossing. They got a new bridge so they have twin bridges, their old bridge was refurbished, they got the double-stack rail tunnel, some great highways and yet their volume is substantially less than ours. I don't get it.

Here are a few examples:

• Oct 5, 2004--- share the cost of more than $10 million in infrastructure improvements including transfer Highway 402 lands in the vicinity of the bridge plaza to the BWBA.
• Sep 27, 2004--- five-year plan to improve infrastructure around the twin spans
• May 6, 2004--- Six projects will be undertaken at a total cost of $115.5 million to improve access to the bridge, and improvements to Highway 401, to improve access to Highway 402 leading to the Blue Water Bridge.
• Sep 23, 2002--- $40 million in infrastructure money for improvements to Highway 402 near Sarnia and plaza upgrades at the Blue Water Bridge
• Feb 27, 1993--- A second span beside the existing bridge will be started in 1995, and finished in early 1997, at a cost of $85 million.When the second span is finished, another $15 million will be spent to re-deck the existing bridge.

Going back into history is an experience too. There is then Mayor Mike Hurst saying in 1992

• "I just learned that Highway 402 had a contribution from the federal government. Now, why wouldn't there have been a federal contribution to improving Huron Church Road?"
  
  HURST was angry about the Highway 402 funding. "The obvious question is, where have the feds been? If they contributed to the 402 because it's an international link, well, what do they think the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel is? It's one of the busiest crossings in Canada. The same can be said of Huron Church Road.
  
  The city and province have already spent more than $40 million widening Huron Church to six lanes, helping to increase traffic and putting more money in the hands of federal excise collectors.
  
  The final $8-million phase of the job - which has already taken more than five years because of the lack of money - is to be completed next year."

My reader asked another interesting question as well that I could not answer. In a nutshell, he asked whether the I-69 corridor movement was a deliberate attempt to move industry away from union cities like Detroit and Windsor into "less confrontational" locations. The auto companies, the imports or "new domestics," seem to be happy away from here.

In 1996, it was said

• "Sarnia's Blue Water Bridge, main competitor for the border crossings between Windsor and Detroit, is doubling in size and looking to increase its share of a growing business.
  
  There's no question that the twinning of the Blue Water Bridge -- the fourth busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing -- is a big deal. By late 1998 the bridge will have three traffic lanes in each direction, the equivalent of the Ambassador Bridge and Windsor-Detroit tunnel put together.
  
  Maybe so, said Windsor Mayor Mike Hurst, but there is still strong competition between the two regions for the growing amount of commercial traffic between the U.S. and Canada. "

I did see the comment in 1997

• "The triangle enclosing Sarnia, Wallaceburg and Chatham is showing an industrial resurgence with Sarnia adding a broader range of industries to go along with its recovering petrochemical industry...Chatham and Wallaceburg have established strong links to the automotive industry."

And in 2000

• "The purpose of the Great Lakes Trade Corridor Association will be to promote and represent the interests of communities located along the trade corridor, which includes Interstate 69, Interstate 94 and Highway 402. That includes Michigan, Indiana and Ontario communities.

It's not just an academic argument. We have had a battle with Sarnia before and lost. The issue then was the double-stack rail tunnel back in 1993. You should take a look at the Canadian Transportation Agency decision for some interesting reading

http://www.cta-otc.gc.ca/rulings-decisions/decisions/1993/R/112-R-1993_e.html

As an example:

• "the construction of a rail tunnel at Sarnia would have, among other matters, an adverse economic impact on the Detroit/Windsor area, shifting industrial, warehousing and intermodal transportation activities away from Detroit. According to the interveners, creating a double-stack corridor through Sarnia/Port Huron cannot rival a double-stack corridor through Windsor/Detroit in terms of creating primary and secondary industries as the Sarnia/Port Huron corridor would completely bypass the vital industrial centers of southwestern Ontario and southeastern Michigan."

I found this quote as well in a document outlining the construction of the Blue Water bridges:

• "I-69 in Michigan and Highway 402 in Canada provided an attractive low-traffic alternative to the Detroit-Windsor route. Ironically the original Blue Water Bridge Commission planned for the bridge to serve the Montreal to Chicago International route, but the descendent of this route did not become a freeway reality until the 1990s."

I could make the argument that DRIC is nothing more than an exercise to fail and to buy more time to build up Sarnia/Port Huron to allow that region to move forward at our expense. The desire seems to be to move industry away from unionized Detroit/Windsor and also provide an alternative to the Ambassador Bridge/Detroit-Windor Tunnel crossings.

It looks like that strategy is working well.

Someone who is much more experienced than I in this matter should write an article on this subject, especially about the movement of industry. All I know is that this silly jockeying of position by our local politicians is hurting, not helping us. Instead of developing a strategy to compete effectively against Sarnia, we are creating a strategy so that we can sue someone to keep the border dispute in litigation for years and have no improvement in our border roads. We are just making it easier and easier for truckers and industry to keep on by-passing us.