$30 Million Tunnel Plaza Money Saved

Whew, taxpayers have just been saved $30 Million! I read in the Star today that "Despite concerns over security, the Windsor tunnel commission has pushed for vehicles heading toward Detroit to again begin lining up inside the underwater border crossing." Obviously the massive traffic jams in the downtown caused by the theft of the South Windsor Art Gallery work of art "Take The Tunnel" has caused the WTC and its Chair Mayor Eddie Francis to reconsider their approach.

I read an article where Neil Belitsky of the Detroit and Canada Tunnel Corporation said "“911 was in a sense a good wake-up call,” says Belitsky. “It really has caused all of us to have a balance between safety, security and facilitating traffic. ” The article also said that "Immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the tunnel corporation stopped vehicle queuing inside the tunnel. Today, a cap is placed on the number of vehicles allowed in the tunnel to ensure quick and efficient traffic flow." Obviously, the traffic jams downtown in the mornings mean that this plan no longer works.

You know that the new $30M Tunnel Plaza Improvement project was designed supposedly to get cars off of City streets ie it was for a giant parking lot that would be achieved by expropriating all kinds of property downtown. I was told at the last meeting held about the project that the new Tunnel Plaza area would hold about 165 vehicles.

So I did some math. I took the length of a 2007 Cadillac Escalade at 222 inches (I figured that was a big vehicle) and multiplied it by 165 and got an answer of 3052.5 feet. Considering that the Tunnel length is 5160 feet (which means it can hold about 279 vehicles), I figured that our Tunnel problem is now solved without spending $30 million of taxpayer money.

I also figured that the Tunnel volume in 1999 was 50% higher than it was today and the Tunnel functioned. Since the Tunnel Plaza improvement project was to allow 50% more vehicles to be processed, we were ok too. In other words, 50% more traffic using today's numbers would equal the volume that was handled in 1999. No need to build more when we know that the Tunnel can handle around 10 million vehicles, not the 6 or 7 million today.

Why then were we having these traffic problems? Oh stop being so cynical for heaven's sake. I know, I know---if we did not have backups on City streets, how could we convince the Senior Levels to fork over $20M to eliminate backups on City streets. If we had no backups, that would mean Windsor would have had to finance the Tunnel Plaza Improvements out of taxpayer pockets to feed Eddie's grand Plans. The Tunnel would have been less attractive to investors too which also would be a main concern of the Mayor.

The reality is that, when Reverse Customs is introduced at the border crossings, the City would need all of the land and space to handle the inspections on our side and we as Windsorites would have had to pay for it all. The new Plaza is designed for reverse customs!

Can we thank the Mayor for being so clever so as to one-up the Senior Levels and not cost us money? The answer is NO! He was too clever for our good. Had he negotiated the deal and said why he wanted it, the Senior Levels would have paid up to pretend that the three levels were now getting along. Don't you remember have lovey-dovey everyone was when the Phase 1 Agreement for the border crossing was signed 2 years ago. We are now at risk of losing the Senior Levels' money since Eddie's justification for the improvements is no longer there.

Why would Eddie not negotiate in the way that made sense you ask----simple. If he advocated for reverse customs at the time, the Bridge Co. would have had it in operation by now since they had advocated for reverse customs for years. They would have had reverse customs long before the Tunnel did meaning the Tunnel would be even worse off financially. Eddie had to buy time but in doing so he risked us losing $20 million. In passing, are the $300M BIF funds at risk?

One more bit of information for you to put things in a context. The Bridge and Tunnel Operators Association (BTOA) is an organization consisting of all international bridge and tunnel operators across the Ontario/Michigan/New York border. BTOA has a "seven-point action plan to address security and travel efficiency experience since September 11 at Canada/U.S. border crossings." It includes reverse customs inspection procedures which our Mayor as WTC Chair should have known about and for which he finally advocated recently.

Until their plan was implemented "To ensure the safety of all their customers, the BTOA members unanimously agree to strict traffic management protocols. ..all members will continue to restrict bridge/tunnel volumes to levels that can immediately flow across facilities. The goal is to avoid having vehicles sitting on bridges or in tunnels."

What that exactly means is obviously open to interpretation. Because of the mess downtown, WTC has been forced to rethink its interpretation. I wonder if the City-retained Gridlock Sam whose City, New York, runs tunnels would take the same position as did the WTC in restricting traffic? I wonder if the WTC interpretation there would have meant traffic gridlock in NYC. If it was not the NYC view, and they are at ground zero for risks, then one has to wonder about Windsor's position and the reasons for it.

It's fine. You may add cynical to my list of personal, descriptive adjectives.