The Ayes Have It

For those of you just dying to appear as a delegation in front of City Council to speak in favour of or against a tunnel for Windsor, here is the Notice of Motion that Councillor Marra will introduce on Monday.

It will probably pass unanimously unless one or two Councillors have the guts to stand up and say it makes no sense. Don't hold your breath though since tunnelling is the new City battle cry (and Eddie's ticket to Queen's Park).

A well-known expert on the matter had this to say to me about the Motion:

• "It's over. Between Eddie and the Windsor Star conditioning the residents on tunnel, tunnel, tunnel... the earth is scorched. The "Great Tunnel Debate" for next Monday is a joke... The MTO will say fine, and not build anything. Period...
  
  The $3.2 billion price tag is not fiction, or "inflated". That's why they'll walk away. You showed yourself, traffic numbers are down, not up. You don't think they know that in Toronto and Ottawa? That buys them 10, 15 years to wait it out and let Windsor suffer for their civic leadership...
  
  MTO will say no rush, we can wait until you come to your senses. They won't literally walk away, but they won't be bullied either. Imagine the precedent! Every municipal leader from Windsor to Timmons finds out they can extort the MTO."

The problem with my friend is that he just does not understand. This is Windsor, we deserve it and are owed it! Just ask City Hall.

If you want to read a brutal BLOG on the lack of scrubber technology that makes a mockery of what is being proposed, read the piece written by ex-Ward Two Candidate Chris Schnurr at
http://chrisschnurr.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/someone-stop-the-insanity/

Perhaps before Councillor Marra writes another letter to the Star, he should ask the Chair of the Windsor Tunnel Commission aka the Mayor about problems with the heritage-designated Tunnel ventilation building and massive cost over-runs for repairs. Perhaps he could ask him also what scrubbing techniques are used at the City owned Tunnel downtown. He may be surprised at the answer! NOTHING!

• Notice of Motion
  
  Whereas tunneling projects are common throughout the world; and
  
  Whereas the City of Windsor wants to protect neighborhoods and get trucks off local streets; and
  
  Whereas tunneling combined with capturing and scrubbing emissions will significantly improve local air quality; and
  
  Whereas the Town of LaSalle adopted Resolution 7652/06 supporting tunneling and has advised DRIC of that position; and
  
  Whereas the Town of Tecumseh Planning Committee adopted resolution PC -41/06, supporting LaSalle’s resolution on Tunneling; and
  
  Whereas the Warden of the County of Essex stated that tunneling is the least intrusive option; and
  
  Whereas there have been numerous public statements and correspondence from the City of Windsor urging tunneling,
  
  Therefore be it RESOLVED that the City of Windsor advise DRIC that they must have a tunneled solution for Windsor Border traffic.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not against tunnelling where appropriate in Windsor but I am against politicians pretending that they are accomplishing something when all they may do is chase the $300 million BIF funds out of town.

Motions like this do nothing to solve the need to find a proper road to the border. All it does is make it tougher for anyone to take Windsor seriously!