Just A Few Stories

Here are some items you may have missed.

BULL SESSION

I wonder what our Mayor will talk about with our loopy Councillors at his regularly scheduled Friday session this week. I am certain that he will prepare the Councillors fully for the Saturday Greenlink meeting and then the DRIC meetings next week.

Wait a minute, he may not be able to hold one on Friday. Cancelled. Again.

He has missed several over the last few weeks in case you did not know this. He will be in Toronto on Friday this time for the Ontario Mayors for Automotive Investment meeting from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. I thought he was calling for the meeting. If so, couldn't he have called it for Windsor or would no one have shown up.

Ahhhh. I know why he wanted to go to Toronto. No, not for shopping. He can cross the border and get a US$20 gift card if he does using his Tunnel. Obviously, he has another big deal to do while he is there, probably about getting Provincial money for his Canal vision. Perhaps Dwight could chauffeur him to the airport again and do another transaction on the way there.

No worries. Knowing our Mayor, I'm sure that he had his Bull sessions before he left and that the Councillors are now up to speed. After all, he wants to make sure that they all know what is going on and are in the Loop so that none of them will be surprised when he makes a huge announcement at the meeting on Saturday.

BORDER TRAFFIC NUMBERS

I wonder what the average number of people per car that crosses the border is. The same with buses, especially tour buses.

The reason I ask the question is because the number of vehicles-- passenger cars and buses-- that crossed over the border in 2008 in our region year to date has dropped dramatically from last year. If most of the passenger cars are tourist vehicles, it is no wonder that our region is suffering with restaurants closing and retail in big trouble. We are looking at potentially hundreds of millions of dollars reduction in revenue.

The scary part about this is that the Bridge Company traffic has dropped. A good part of it can be attributed to the Ambassador Gateway project and all of the construction around the bridge. However, the Tunnel is not picking up the slack since its volume is down too. What it means is that people are not coming over at all whether due to the dollar or the price of gas or fears about passports or who knows what.

What is even more troubling is that the number of trucks is sharply reduced as well, obviously because of the slowdown in the automotive business. More bad news for us.

Without wishing to belabour the point again, how can a new DRIC bridge be justified on a traffic volume basis when traffic is dropping like a stone. Who can afford to finance a new bridge and why should the other crossings be put into financial difficulty because some bureaucrats can't see beyond the end of their nose.

Can someone explain to me what positive note there is in the economy that will marvelously result in an increase in volume when everyone is predicting that we are in or close to a recession?

PUBLIC AUTHORITIES HAVE HOUSE PROBLEMS TOO

This sounds familiar except the story takes place in Buffalo and with Brian Masse's favourite Public Authority:

• “But it’s clearly not our intent to restore these properties, which may be different from the views of some neighbors,” Rienas said.
  
  He told city officials the authority had bought the properties on Busti between Rhode Island and Vermont streets in the 1990s, always planning to demolish them to expand the Peace Bridge plaza. He noted that city officials even ratified documents several years ago recognizing that the properties are slated for demolition.
  
  As the bridge project faced a series of delays, all parties agree that conditions at the vacant properties continued to deteriorate. Neighborhood residents have long complained that the structures are more than just eyesores, claiming they have been magnets for rodents, feral cats, hookers, squatters and drug users."

ONE GOOD TERN DESERVES ANOTHER

The plans for a dramatic Signature Bridge at the Peace Bridge were put in jeopardy because of some birds and fish:

• "Terns fly over — not under — bridges, so flying over Menn’s 567- foot-high bridge could “lessen their chances for survival and their ability to adequately feed their young,” the department said...
  
  As for the emerald shiner, a primary source of food for the tern, placing Menn’s piers along the Canadian shoreline and along the Bird Island Pier would have a negative effect on the fish, which moves along the shoreline."

No problems in that part of Ontario and New York State however

• "Senator Charles E. Schumer called on the Public Bridge Authority to move full speed ahead in designing a new signature bridge by following a plan that would involve the community, as well as local, federal and state officials. In October, Schumer worked with officials to successfully win the green light to move ahead with a Signature Bridge Design without a lengthy environmental study."

I see that the Senator did not involve the terns as part of the group nor the fish. He could have had some bird brains involved to help him in his upstream fight.

• "It was a big win for us to get the unnecessary environmental study of the bridge off the table..
  
  Senator Schumer, a long-time advocate for a signature, cable-stayed bridge, worked with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) over the past year to ensure that a lengthy, unnecessary environmental study of the common tern would not impede the community’s efforts to build a new Peace Bridge."

Clearly, the environmentalists are upset. While some may say that the Senator's plans are for the birds, his opponents are crying fowl.

I think there is something fishy going on because I did not see anything that dealt with saving the fish. The birds may fly but they will all starve to death without food.

Maybe that's the idea. With no birds alive--terned off if you will--they can build their nice big bridge without challenge!