Greenlink R.I.P.

After all of this WEDC and 400 Building audit stuff, it is good to get back to a border BLOG.

Believe it or not, I heard from a very credible source that there may actually be a Greenlink4.

We know about Greenlink and Son of Greenlink. The Star's Don Mcarthur seemed to confirm what I had heard that there was a Grandson of Greenlink. Now there may be another one. I wonder what Eddie was giving up this time and whether Councillors know.

Those poor Teshuba letter writers. They may have been sending a letter about something that may no longer exist.

I wonder how much all of these revisions are costing taxpayers and we still have no idea what new compromises are being proposed.

As I just Blogged recently, Eddie was so quiet over the jobs and over the Laurier Extension. I do have an explanation but do not know if I am correct or not.

I have the idea that Eddie has been told it is all over, to be quiet. I think he was told to quit tilting at windmills if he knows what is good for him politically.

• "Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

You may wonder why I used that expression. Here is a fascinating news article from the Toronto Sun:

• "Generating controversy
  
  Grits' green legislation to clear way for wind farms and other eco energy projects 'undemocratic'
  
  By JONATHAN JENKINS, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
  
  It's green and mean.
  
  At least some say so.
  
  The Ontario government is introducing green legislation next week expected to strip the right of local councils to oppose wind farms and other green industry projects.
  
  Wind farms are a prime example of the type of green industry the province is trying to encourage to generate clean electricity and foster growth in new industries.
  
  However, local objections and red tape have been used to stall new projects and frustrate developers.
  
  That won't be allowed under the new law.
  
  "We need to assert a higher provincial interest," McGuinty said last week.
  
  "We cannot allow small groups and individual municipalities to stand in the way of the greater public interest." That means not wanting one in your backyard won't cut it as an objection.
  
  It's a political departure by Ontario's Liberal leadership that has taken pains to show it's running a government that listens.
  
  McGuinty's government is also desperate to stimulate jobs at a time when this province's auto sector has been ravaged and the broader economy is suffering."

Major projects like the DRIC Road could always be done merely by uploading the road any time the Province wanted. That will happen soon with E C Row. And now legislation can be passed to eliminate "local objections and red tape" and "stalling."

Why didn't the Province do this you might think earlier on? Simple, no money until 2010. Eddie did his job by keeping everything in limbo. Now he is not needed any more except...

The big problem now is no P3 money for a road that will cost over $3B by the time it is finished. What to do , what to do.

There are 2 choices the Province has:
1) Have Eddie stop threatening and actually sue over the EA to stall matters even more until traffic and the economy recovers whenever that is
2) Build the "cheap" at grade solution, mitigated to avoid problems.

My guess, Alternative 2 especially because DRIC finally issued a press release confirming what we Bloggers have been saying for an eternity:

• "The fact is, getting rid of traffic lights will eliminate stop-and-go traffic and reduce emissions. New cleaner fuel rules and (truck) engine technologies are also reducing pollution from tailpipe emissions."

We have better things to do than to waste money to build a road that is not needed. We have been Delrayed long enough.

It will be called an interim step and will lead right to the Ambassador Bridge. Dwight will have learned from the kangaroo even if Sean O'Dell did not.

Oh, sorry to say to a few bureaucrats, the DRIC bridge is now dead too!