Scare Stories Are In Vogue Again

Oh Lord, the DRIC people have to be so desperate now.

I can hardly wait until Sean O’Dell comes back to tell us that there is sufficient traffic now for an Enhancement Project Bridge and a DRIC bridge or for someone in Government to tell us that a P3 solution makes sense even after the Port Mann Bridge P3 project collapsed.

I can just imagine the telephone call that took place:

• "OMG. The BLOGMeister has done a Freedom of Information Application and wants our investment grade traffic survey reports. We have stalled off releasing them for about a year now. What are we going to do now because they show that traffic has dropped and will not come back for years and years? I mean after all the whole justification for the DRIC project was that traffic was going to double and that the Ambassador Bridge was at capacity. Wait, I have got hit. It is a brilliant idea"

I heard a rumour the other day that the discredited security concerns were being brought back to try to support the building of a DRIC bridge. You see, none of the other reasons for building a DRIC bridge works or is supportable.

Lo and behold the Detroit Free Press ran a story about some of these security issues. Our Senator Kenney had dealt with this years ago and I thought the issue had been put to bed. Apparently not. The US side had to have their shot at that as well.

If the Bridge is that much of a security concern, I would have thought that no one in Government would mention it so that it gets coverage on the front page of a major newspaper in the United States. With all of the various Internet newsreaders services, that kind of information would get out to the "bad guys" very quickly.

What kind of idiot would want to release this kind of story and jeopardize the trade of North America? Even being desperate to beat the Ambassador Bridge is not an excuse for doing something so stupid. Someone from Homeland Security needs to talk to this person and give his/her head a shake for releasing information that could be prejudicial to the interests of Canada and the United States.

But before anybody gets too upset about it, one needs to ask a question. If it is a real concern, where are the RCMP and OPP police cars around the Bridge on our side protecting it and where are the military forces on the other side making sure that everything remains safe?

Don't you think that someone is trying to work up people into a frenzy because the traffic projection argument has failed miserably and their P3 financing sources have dried up!

Here’s a very funny line in their story:

• “Meanwhile, many of the biggest, most significant border crossings in North America already have redundancy built into them.”

If there really is a concern, then why hasn’t the Enhancement Project been approved by now? I would have thought that approval should be a priority and that MDOT and the American Government would have been pressuring Canada to do something by now. I have not seen that happen.

Here is a comment I read from a US public policy research institute

• "In 2005, recognizing the vital role Ambassador Bridge plays between the U.S. and Canada, DHS worked with the private-sector bridge stakeholders to reduce border wait time—which had been resulting in significant delays in commerce—by 25 percent.
  
  Presently, several actors are looking to continue the private-sector tradition by building a second bridge span. Instead of looking to the federal government, the new bridge will be built entirely with private dollars by the Ambassador Bridge Company...
  
  Politics, however, threatens to undermine the second span of the bridge. The Canadian government has acted reluctant at times to give the Ambassador Bridge Company a permit... There is undoubtedly a solution in the midst of the controversy. The United States must continue to negotiate this problem with U.S. interests in mind."

Again, the Blue Water Bridge was twinned and the Governments seem to want a new bridge beside the existing Peace Bridge. Something just does not make sense. If twinning is all right in other areas, then why is it not all right beside the Ambassador Bridge? There seems to be a bit of hypocrisy because it is a private bridge I guess.

I will tell you one thing. If Brig. Gen. Michael McDaniel, Gov. Jennifer Granholm's homeland security adviser, thinks the following, I would respectfully suggest that he do his homework a little bit better:

• "There are two main targets, either the people or the structure," he said. "If you were going to talk about the most important infrastructure in Michigan, you'd be talking about the Soo Locks and the Ambassador Bridge."

From a "bad guys" perspective, if that is what he is looking at, then there is a much better target than either of these. My guess is that he knows what that target is as well as I do and what he is doing is distracting people from it by pointing at other targets that are much more secure.

Of course, I have no intention of saying what that target is but I am sure that you, dear reader, can probably guess pretty accurately.

I feel very bad with this BLOG in not giving you certain other information. For example, there is another regional transportation asset that is absolutely crucial for cross-border trade. I do not mean the Tunnel either. It has been around for some time as well and yet I have not heard anyone say that it ought to be duplicated as well. Why not? Why is it only the Ambassador Bridge?

Here is something that the Mayor might want to talk about with respect to Greenlink and the DRIC people as well considering that they are putting in Schwunnels in their road. As I Blogged before:

• “I wonder if Gridlock Sam and Parsons Brinckerhoff retained a security advisor as part of their group when designing Schwunnels. You know those short tunnels up to 1 KM long that Sam put in all over the place in Greenlink that we are supposed to be so happy about. In fact, I wonder if the DRIC people did as well with their road project.
  
  If you stop and think about it, can you imagine the border chaos that would be caused if there was an accident in a shunnel or a Schwunnel. It does not take a super brain to figure out that even the smallest fender bender involving a couple of transport trucks could cause backups for hours going into the United States. Can you imagine what would happen to cross-border trade if we had the equivalent of that California fire that took place recently involving over 20 trucks.
  
  The trouble is that I believe that all of these people know the answer. They're treating us like fools again. There's much more involved in all of this border stuff than we poor taxpayers can figure out. One only needs to look at the materials that were disclosed in Port Huron as part of their border crossing file to know that we are not being given all of the relevant information.
  
  There is no doubt in my mind that the tunnels, Schwunnels and shunnels are huge security risks. I will let you figure out in your own mind the various ways that those who wish to harm the economies of Canada and United States could do so without very much effort. Unless there is going to be a tremendous security system in place before a vehicle enters the road to the border, then our economies are at risk.”

Take a look at my BLOG “November 29, 2007 How Greenlink Will Build E C Row As A Border Road where I said:

• “The security risk is the border road and not the bridge itself.”

It is a shame that the Free Press did not have a reporter at the Cropsey hearings or they would have recognized that this was an absolute nonissue. The Bridge Company told the Senator of their solution to solve the security issue at their bridge and at other bridges across North America.

It would appear that MDOT, even though they were at the session, must not have told Brig. Gen. McDaniel or he would not have made the comment that he did either.

You may remember this article that I Blogged before and my comments:

• “An interesting story about the terrorist threat:
  
  "Plan to protect infrastructure from terrorists
  Andrew Mayeda, CanWest News Service, May 26, 2007
  
  OTTAWA - The federal government plans to roll out a national strategy this summer to protect critical infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines from terrorist attacks and other threats, according to documents obtained by CanWest News Service...
  
  The national strategy would reach far beyond the oil and gas sector to cover everything from power plants and telecommunications networks to banking systems, hospitals, transport routes, food-distribution networks, manufacturing facilities and the water supply."
  
  I assume that the Ambassador Bridge is included under "transport routes." The funny thing is that it seems everyone wants another bridge in Windsor because of the security risk but the Report in the news article does not say to duplicate all of the other potential targets.”

We have seen how sophisticated operatives can hit more sites than one at the same time. If they are going to hit at one bridge in the region, one should expect that all of the crossings would be hit in a coordinated fashion in order to damage the economy of North America.

I would have thought that reverse customs would make a lot more sense but no one seems to want to talk about that these days.

I can hardly wait to hear FHWA's Jim Steele argue for the need for redundant plazas again as the DRIC justification. Now that is a real knee-slapper!