Driving Transport Minister Lapierre

What do I know about roads and traffic. I have an LL.M not a P.Eng. But it is like "Art." I know what like and what I do not like (Oh no, Councillor Cassivi will ask me for a definition) And I do NOT like driving on the E C Row.

We know that E C Row needs to be expanded to meet community purposes. We know that E C Row will need a ton of money to repair it as it falls apart. We know we want to keep Montreal-to-Tijuana trucks off of that road. We know that Cansult spent a good part of their report on Schwartz talking about E C Row leading everyone to believe that the Feds want it for international truck traffic.

Transport Minister LaPierre laid it out directly in his letter in the Star:

• "It mystifies me how a study of an independent engineer to provide advice on the feasibility of Sam Schwartz’s truck bypass proposal has been misrepresented as the federal government supporting international truck traffic on E.C. Row Expressway....Nothing could be further from the truth...The prime minister and I recognize that E.C. Row is owned by ... the taxpayers of Windsor...It is therefore up to the city to determine the future of E.C. Row. If the city decides some day to expand this expressway, then that decision will be solely within the purview of the Windsor City Council and presumably it will be funded out of the City of Windsor capital budget."

So what the Minister is really saying is play ball with us and we'll give you the money for E C Row and if you do not, then Windsor pay for expansion yourself!

I had no idea how to resolve this mess. But I knew to whom to talk! And talk he did:

• "EC Row is by modern design standards a substandard urban freeway.
  
  It has little in the way of redemptive qualities when compared to other modern and URBAN freeways running through 21st century cities; it is above grade thus amplifying the noise and visual pollution, the interchanges are too close together, there is no contiguous service roadway system, it requires difficult weaving movements to get on and off and no two interchanges are designed the same. And now the pavement is in distress and the roadway is reaching capacity as far as being able to handle regional east-west traffic. There is no lighting east of Central. If you go beyond Lauzon Parkway the freeway ends in a SIGNALIZED intersection at Banwell and has another two signalized intersections at Lesperance and Manning. This goes beyond dumb design – this is dangerous. Long queues of traffic are seen all the time on the expressway on the east end.
  
  Clearly, EC Row has to be reconstructed and expanded in the next 10 to 15 years if the region is to continue growing economically and population wise. EC Row is essential to local industry and commerce and will be essential to any planned industrial developments east of the airport, or even to possible inter-modal facilities there. Right now it is one infrastructure advantage we have over London (which has no expressway) or Kitchener-Waterloo (Highway 7 and 8 are plugged solid through the cities).
  
  But we should not settle for simply “widening” the freeway as was discussed in the Cansult report or the IBI Group Regional transportation plan. In fact, simply widening the freeway may only exacerbate the bad qualities of the existing roadway. Instead we should insist on a properly reconstructed EC Row, from Manning to Ojibway; a below grade freeway with the cross-streets like Walker, Dougall and Howard going OVER EC Row rather than under, with a comprehensive service road system that allows redundancy for east-west traffic in the event of an accident and with superior interchange lay-outs such as Single Point Urban Interchanges (SPUI’s) that will be able to move Windsor and region residents off and on EC Row better and more safely. Such a freeway would address capacity issues for the next 40 years, reduce air and noise pollution and improve safety.
  
  The cost for such a project would more than likely be in excess of $500 million. But the cost of fixing EC Row and fixing right, compared to the economic, health and safety benefits of a freeway as described above would be worth four or five times its cost.
  
  Absolutely nobody wants international truck traffic using EC Row as a route between the 401 and the border. And now that the DRIC has removed EC Row from consideration as cross-border route perhaps it might not be taboo any longer to discuss the future of this important transportation route from a regional perspective. It is going to take 7 years of an accelerated EA program to decide on a new border crossing. Can we afford to wait too much longer to initiate what will also be a 5 year plus study on EC Row?”

Whew, I guess I asked for it. Now I knew what he thought about E C Row but $500 million....how were we going to pay for that I asked. The answer was easy!

• "Just do what the Americans are doing now. Don't you remember what the News Herald news story said: examine the need for redundancy in the infrastructure leading to the Ambassador Bridge. We need to provide redundancy in the road network so a breakdown on the way to the (Ambassador Bridge) does not shut the border crossings down."
  
  If there are no improvements to EC Row, all will be negative for the region. Why not then go to the Senior Levels and say that you might entertain officially allowing EC Row as a redundant or emergency route if the Feds come in and pay for improvements to the corridor. Make it part of the border route and use the Federal/Provincial monies to pay for it all.
  
  Beat Lapierre at his own game! Call his bluff and Dwight's too. Remember Dwight likes being Finance Minister and to continue, he needs to be re-elected. Call him on his Gong Show $500 million!
  
  After all is said and done, we get a route for international traffic on the edge of the city, a rebuilt EC Row and the Feds/Industry get a transportation system with redundancy to the border in the event of an accident or incident.
  
  All I suggest is a little bit of horse trading with the Feds and MTO. The money is there. And the benefit to Windsor/Essex County with a beefed up EC Row would be enourmous. However, are your civic leaders up to the challenge and will they actually learn how to protect properly the City's interests this time and not give it away like they did with the Phase 1 Agreement "

I forgot to ask my friend....if the new Cabana Road is built with four lanes as was proposed (notwithstanding that citizens apparently only wanted a three lane road) will we have our cross city truck expressway to Huron Church? We'll talk about that another time I am sure