Shreck And O'Dell Relatively speaking

Yes, dear reader, I think that Transport Canada's Sean O'Dell may have found his long lost US relative. His name is Bill Shreck and he is an MDOT spokesman.

You remember Sean's wise saying:

• "Moroun will lose some traffic, but there's more than enough business to go around."

Bill may have one-upped him! Or actually multi-upped him in one single news story.

Now Bill is an MDOT DRIC apologist after all too, but he kind of shot down Sean. That was very unrelative-like:

• Bridge project may be topic in Obama's Canada trip
  
  "Stamper says 9.4 million vehicles, including 3.5 million trucks, crossed the Ambassador Bridge in 2006. Traffic on the bridge has been dropping each year since 1999.
  
  But that is expected to change once the economies of both countries pick up, MDOT spokesman Bill Shreck said.
  
  "We have six lanes of traffic at Detroit/Windsor and two are tunnels which can't handle truck traffic," Shreck said. "We're competing with Buffalo which have 14 lanes, and they are talking about expanding.
  
  "We need to be competitive against other border crossings. Right now, we need a modern, fully functioning Ambassador Bridge. We need a DRIC bridge ... all that to be in place when the economy recovers."

He admits that traffic is down by confirming what Stamper said. Yet he thinks we need a DRIC Bridge still. However, just about everything else that he said is so wrong that one wonders which Briefing Notes he has been reading and whether his Director will call him into his office to give Shreck heck:

1) Perhaps Bill can tell us exactly when the economy will pick up. I would think that the Big Three might be interested in his wise words so that they can tell Congress not to worry. All they need to say is "Shreck told us" and they would get their multi-billion dollar loans.

2) Someone better tell the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel that they cannot handle truck traffic. I wonder then what are those strange big vehicles that go through the Tunnel that certainly do not look like cars

3) Even the Peace Bridge people acknowledge that the issue is no longer capacity but rather the smooth flow of traffic. That problem would be solved for FAST trucks with the third lane of a new Enhancement Project Bridge

4) There seemed again to be no recognition by MDOT that lanes are not the issue but that Customs processing is the concern. I thought that it was said during the Cropsey hearing that there could be up to 60 booths at the Ambassador Bridge. The new DRIC Bridge will have 29 inbound Customs booth lanes into Canada for 2035, the number of lanes that the Bridge Company has now interestingly enough.

5) There seems to be a failure to understand as well that the Bridge itself can handle more vehicles given its capacity capability and the Gateway project for which about a quarter of the billion dollars has been spent and which project was designed to accommodate a second bridge.

6) Even with all of their lanes in the Buffalo area, an FHWA Report stated that the Ambassador Bridge was the best border operation and that others should learn from it.

However, I believe that Bill may have lost it. He is clearly under so much pressure that he will almost say anything in order to have the DRIC bridge built. He is even prepared to undercut his own Department to do so.

Bill talks about competing with other crossings and specifically mentions Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Don't you find it interesting that he does not mention MDOT's Blue Water Bridge which is the real competition to the Ambassador Bridge. He does not do so because the Bridge Company has been so successful in taking away traffic from them and because they did such a poor job in design that they need to spend another half billion dollars to build a new plaza in Port Huron.

Bill oh Bill is in big trouble now. Wait until his Director reads his comments. Now the Director is in big trouble too. Here is the reason why. In an MDOT Border Crossing Workshop, competition with Buffalo was described as a "MYTH." The image above came from that Presentation. MDOT "debunked" the Myth by saying that Michigan and New York crossings serve very different markets :

• Different trade corridors
  
• Different markets for commodities

Has Bill changed MDOT policy without the Director's approval? Oh my.

After reading what Sean and Bill have to say, perhaps I know now where someone came up with the expression "It's all relative."