Stories From The Border

Here are some interesting stories about border crossings.

NO ONE LISTENS TO CHRYSLER CANADA PRESIDENTS

It's no wonder.

Doesn't it get tiresome reading what Chrysler Canada presidents have to say about the border crossing? Have they not yet got the idea that no one is listening to what they have to say? Don't you think that if they understood what they're talking about someone might actually do so.

I saw a quote from Reid Bigland, president of Chrysler Canada Inc.

• "We need an additional border crossing. There is no substitute at all for increasing infrastructure and a new bridge to be constructed, full stop," Mr. Bigland told a meeting of the Canadian American Business Council yesterday."

How dramatic don't you think. We also learned that

• "Between Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, we have 3,000 trucks a day that cross over that bridge [Ambassador Bridge]," Bigland said.
  
  "We're burning at an hourly rate to transport our goods at about $116 an hour."
  
  The bridge's "unpredictable nature" has forced Chrysler to set up satellite warehousing facilities for some of its lower-cost, fast-moving parts to avoid operational delays."

I am too polite to say that a lot of the problems on the road and at border crossings are due to the automobile industry. Their just-in-time practices mean that they have less warehousing buildings and that inventories are now in trucks and on roads paid for by taxpayers. It has become a governmental expense not a company expense.

Naturally, Mr. Bigland thinks nothing of passing the multibillion dollar costs of building a new border crossing onto the shoulders of taxpayers. If we take it to the extreme, perhaps we should build several new border crossing reserved for each of the auto companies so they will have no problems whatsoever in going across the border.

In my opinion, auto industry executives ought to sit down and actually understand how the border really works. Perhaps if they talked to their own Traffic people, they might get an understanding. The issue is not capacity dear Mr. Bigland, the issue is getting trucks through the border efficiently and quickly.

Building a brand new multibillion-dollar border crossing near the existing crossing when the Ambassador Bridge is at around 50-60% of capacity is idiotic. It is a waste of money. All that we are creating is another parking lot over the River. Having more bridges doesn't get a single truck through more quickly if there is not the infrastructure in place to handle them quickly.

I guess Mr. Bigland was not around when Schwartz Report #1 appeared on the scene. That report suggested building a multi-hundred million dollar Horseshoe road to manage the truck backups on Huron Church Road. Of course, that would not move a single truck through the border more quickly, his objective. It would just provide a nicer parking lot for them while they waited and waited and waited.

Instead, the Ambassador Bridge Company spent a few million dollars, opened up four booths on the American side for trucks to go through and the border problem was solved. No new bridge, just a few booths at a cost borne by the private enterprise operator.

Mr. Bigland need just take a look at the Sarnia/Port Huron area. They have traffic jams there too but they are compounded by design flaws on the American side as a result of MDOT failures. At the Blue Water Bridge, they have expressways leading to a border crossing, twinned bridges and they still have a mess that will require over $400 million to fix. Does Mr. Bigland want MDOT, Ontario's Transport Ministry and Transport Canada designing his new border crossing?

Might I suggest that Mr. Bigland contact the Ambassador Bridge Company and have them give him a presentation about their Enhancement Project. He might then get an inkling about what the border crossing issue is all about so that he could be a participant who understands what he's saying. Then, he might be able to use his influence to get a solution and now, when it is needed.

Anyway, the automobile companies have been used so much as a political tool and this is just another case. Mr. Bigland's comment and the timing of the North American Competitiveness Council meeting just happen to fall a few weeks before Transport Canada Minister Cannon speaks at a P3 conference and in which several of his subordinates are participants respecting the Windsor border crossing.

Such a coincidence don't you think.

INFRASTRUCTURE JOBS

The Detroit news reported:

• "the U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 79-to-14 to set aside his veto and authorize $23 billion of water projects nationwide, including a new $342 million commercial shipping lock at Sault Ste. Marie...
  
  The eventual funding will create jobs in Michigan, which currently has a 7.5 jobless rate -- the highest in the nation.
  
  Mike Gillhooley, a real estate salesman in Sault Ste. Marie, said pumping $342 million into the hard-struck area for the new shipping lock will help workers with jobs tied to bars, restaurants, hotels and real estate.
  
  "This is like hitting the lottery," Gillhooley said. "The lock will mean contractors come from all over the country, and they will stay in hotels, buy house, eat at restaurants."

Hmmmm what have I been saying for so long about the BIF money, the Enhancement project and the road to the bridge! 10,000 plus jobs here are being lost for what? Petty politics?

When will our local industrial and business leaders get off their rear ends and start shouting and demanding that we hit the jackpot too.

MACKINAC BRIDGE TOLL INCREASE

WJR posted

• "The Mackinac Bridge Authority is considering raising tolls to pay for a series of bridge renovations over the next 20 years that could total $300 million. Construction plans include a complete redecking of the bridge. This project wouldn’t start until 2017. One plan would raise the one-way toll for automobiles, currently $2.50, to $4. Truck tolls would increase from $3 per axle to $5 per axle. The second plan would levy the same increases, but incrementally, in 2008 and 2013."

Now that is a big jump in tolls brought to you by a public authority. It is 60% for cars, 67% for trucks. OUCH!

I wonder what Brian Masse would have to say about that.

TOLL COST PER MILE

I wonder what Brian Masse would have to say about this as well.

I saw a document posted on the Internet that was created recently by a public Border Authority in the United States.

With all this talk about tolls and who charges the most and who charges the least and all the reasons for it, it seems to me that when we talk about our region we ought to look at the Bridge and the Tunnel. Sure everybody attacks the Ambassador Bridge Company about their tolls in comparison to those in other areas but in this debate no one seems to mention the Tunnel.

Therefore when I saw the comparison made by the Authority between the Bridge and the Tunnel I was shocked. Do you know what the two-axle passenger vehicle toll cost per mile at the two crossings is? At the Tunnel, it is $3.50 while at the Bridge it is $2.14!

If Brian Masse thinks that the Bridge Company's tolls are too high, what will he say about the Cities-owned Tunnel?