I am posting above a rendering of what the Bridge Co. says is all the land they need for their project.... not 80-120 acres in Sandwich that can destroy the Community as in the DRIC conceptual drawing of a plaza but their existing footprint! The significance of this drawing will become obvious as you read on below. The Bridge Co. just changed the rules of the game that will make their plaza size perfectly acceptable and puts another nail in wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on a DRIC bridge!
It's really quite a lot of fun watching the opponents of the Bridge Co. spit out the fact that the Company wants to make a dollar. Just like the headline of the Star the other day:
- "'Bottom line' called bridge's only interest"
I did not know that, in Windsor, making a profit was a sin. On that theory, we should be thrilled that the Tunnel is doing so poorly and will cost the taxpayers money as its dividend disappears.
Have you heard anyone complain during the border debate that the Citys' tolls are higher than that of private company in Windsor? Why not? Does that mean that carrying on business and losing money, which will require a tax increase, is "acceptable" merely because it is "public?"
I would have thought that a commuter who uses the bridge ought to be happy to save a few dollars a week in tolls. I would have thought that taxpayers would be pleased that the private company would spend its money on a bridge crossing and not require government financing. Really, explain to me why a P3 bridge where a private company builds it and operates it for 75-99 years is all that different than a "private" bridge. Didn't you know that it is worse: P3s generally require Government not to build facilities that compete with them, a true monopoly.
I thought about this when I heard the Bridge Co. make a rather breath-taking announcement at its public session at the Caboto Club the other night. You will have to take my word for it because again the Star could not send a reporter to cover the event!
On April 1, the Bridge Co. opened a processing centre on the US side of the river to help truck drivers process paperwork for the cross-border trip. A Canada Customs agent was stationed there to assist--no, not reverse customs yet, but a start as far as I am concerned:
- "Starting April 1, 2007, all commercial importations entering Canada at the Ambassador Bridge will be required to use one of the Canada Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) existing line release clearance options...
The initiative also builds on the existing CBSA security measures to ensure an appropriate level of border security and improved control of vehicles reporting to the CBSA commercial offsite facility. The number of vehicles required to report there will be significantly reduced, allowing for enhanced monitoring and convoying of vehicles that are referred to the offsite facility.
Carriers/Importers who fail to comply with these requirements will have their shipments returned to the United States...
the Ambassador Bridge has established an Advanced Border Processing Center in Detroit,Michigan. The CBSA will provide a resource person at the Center to provide additional assistance and guidance to carriers and Importers during the initial phase of implementation....
Only commercial importations that are not able to use line release clearance options, such as those subject to other government department requirements, will be processed at the offsite facility. This small percentage of vehicles with these shipments will travel to the offsite under new, strict monitoring procedures."
What does all of this mean...Very simple...the number of trucks that require secondary inspection in Canada has already dropped from about 700 per day to about 100 per day and is expected to drop even further. This parallels what has been going on with trucks entering the US.
So what is the significance of this:
- it means that the Bridge Co.'s 40 acre plaza above is large enough to handle whatever needs to be done on the Canadian a side (the joint Canada-US plaza at the Peace Bridge proposed to be built in Canada for "Shared Border Management" would only be about 17 acres larger!)
- there is no need for DRIC designed plazas of up to 120 acres which would impact Sandwich
- it means that there will be, in effect, pre-clearance so that a truck can be cleared in 15-30 seconds rather than the 2 minutes or so required now
- it means that the Ambassador Bridge capacity has sky-rocketed upwards since more trucks can be processed during the same time period, up to 4 times as many
- it means that paperwork will not need to be done at counters at the border thereby freeing up Customs officers who can be postioned outside at customs booths to help clear trucks
- it means secondary inspection does NOT have to be done at the border since the few trucks involved would move in convoys to the Bridge's secondary inspection site. And that means a 80-120 acre plaza is not needed. Forty acres is more than sufficient!
- traffic on Huron Church southbound is improved because trucks will only need to use one lane since trucks have already been cleared and do not need slow down to make a right turn to go to secondary inspection.
Effectively, this new clearance system has changed everything to the point that one has to look seriously at DRIC and ask if what they are doing is relevant for a new border crossing in Windsor with the changes in technology. Do we need a multi-billion dollar capacity increase in other words? The bridge can now handle four times its traffic volume when DRIC only predicted (wrongly of course) a doubling.
That's rather complicated to understand. Here's something much simpler. It's why Government just does not get it when it is OUR taxpayer money at stake, not private dollars coming out of the owner's pocket.
Gridlock Sam Schwartz wanted to build a Horseshoe Road to prevent back-ups on Huron Church Road. Effectively, he was advocating spending hundreds of millions for a road that would really be a giant parking lot. The Bridge Co. opened up four new US Customs booths at a cost of about two million "private" dollars to keep trucks moving and solved the problem of Huron Church! They understood that the need was traffic flowing not traffic parking. Exactly the same mistake the City is making at the Tunnel now which will cost us $30M or more (It's a shame for our bank accounts that the Bridge Co. did NOT take over Tunnel operations).
Governments are building better parking lots not building a better bridge as the Bridge Co. is doing.
Frankly, the cost of all of this private enterprise initiative is a lot cheaper than building another "public" border crossing isn't it? The Bridge Co. may make a profit but why not? They can save taxpayers billions. Why shouldn't they be rewarded for their brains!
I think that this is why Dan Stamper is so angry about the DRIC designed plaza drawing. He knows there is no need for this huge plaza that was supposed to take over Sandwich. He knows that his existing plaza and secondary inspection area work. He was made the devil with horns in the Sandwich area and was kicked out of the DRIC process even though his solution is the best one and for which he has spent $500M relying on what he thought he had agreed with Government.
It was not his drawing and he objected to it. He will really profit now from that and I do not mean just monetarily!
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