Truck/Car-pal Tunnel Syndrome

I had a very long telephone conversation with Al Teshuba some time ago and, as he emailed to me, he believes in tunneling "as the best thing to do to facilitate international truck traffic through our city." This comment, therefore, is not meant to criticize him personally but right now he is the guy talking about tunnels in public so he gets the flack based on what he says.

Just to let you know who he is, Al Teshuba got publicity in the Star respecting his pro-tunnel views. He is the Co-chair of a group called "Choose Tunneling" and runs three websites dealing with the tunnel issue. He was the Conservative candidate in Windsor West, but lost to Brian Masse, and is a rumoured candidate for a Council seat in Ward 1 or Ward 2.

On the same day as Al's news story, there was quite a long Letter to the Editor in the Star, 50% longer than normally allowed to be vigilantly fair about it, slamming Dwight and Sandra as the Star had done a few days before in an Editorial and also supporting tunnelling.

I guess that this is what Windsor Star executive editor Marty Beneteau meant when he said (in relation to the Dupont inquest) "We did things that newspapers can do to bring about change, positive change. I think we got a lot of results this year and this now validates the results we got."

Whew, good thing for Windsorites that the Star is no longer a DRTP supporter.

According to Al, "Failure to construct a border traffic tunnel in Windsor will cost governments an additional $2.5 billion in the long run."

Al runs a number of websites with respect to this matter and eventually, if you follow the path, you get to his tunnel analysis and cost justification. If the analysis is meant to convince bureaucrats that constructing a tunnel in Windsor makes sense from an economic perspective, I do not think he makes a convincing case on the numbers.

Here is part of an email I sent to Al on April 8 after visiting his websites:

• Hi Al,
  
  If you calculated that the 50 year savings are $2.5 billion, ["Our group estimates over 2.5 BILLION DOLLARS of calculated negative impact damage on Windsor and its residents (over 50 years) if an above grade route is built instead of tunneling.] then you are just about breaking even with the cost of a 6 km tunnel and road as described by Henderson and the Star Editorial a week ago.
  
  At the Cansult Engineering number of $300M per km, figure out what putting a tunnel under the entire route will be! PLUS you know that engineering numbers are rarely right eg the Big Dig.

One other point that requires some consideration: Ventilation Design Options. I do not remember hearing much about that from tunnel proponents.

It seems that the answer is "Full Transverse Ventilation – 6 km tunnel tunnel would require one large building or three smaller buildings; Design issues include noise, large land requirements but provides pollutant dispersal. Examples include the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel."

If you want to know the size of such a building, go downtown to our heritage designated Tunnel Ventilation building...It is costing us millions to renovate by the way! DRIC suggested 1 large or 3 small buildings along the 6 KM corridor so we would probably need many more of them for the full route. I also show a picture at the top of this BLOG of the DRIC drawing of such buildings and their scale. Who will want one of them beside his/her house spewing truck fumes?

Oh and a secret too..From what I have been told, I do NOT believe that the air from the City owned Tunnel downtown is scrubbed clean either. Perhaps that could be an environmental project for the Mayor/Windsor Tunnel Commission Chair to complete to put a checkmark against in his Report Card!

I wonder how bad the air around that building and nearby is downtown with all of the vehicle fumes in the Tunnel being dispersed. If you have driven through the Tunnel, you know the smell from the exhaust can be strong sometimes. "Polluntant Dispersal" would make an interesting project for the Ministry of the Environment!