No Excuses Now: Build The Ambassador Bridge Project Already!!!
IF I AM RIGHT, accordingly, since the Ambassador Bridge Enhancement Project Bridge was #1 in Michigan and was dropped for phony reasons, the Project should now be able to get moving immediately and the DRIC road can be designed to head there. It is already as I Blogged.
After all, we will now have a plaza in Canada to be approved by CBSA, one in the US [The Ambassador Gateway Project] and the bridge landings on both sides. All we need is the middle finished!
That means as Michigan Senator Gilbert, Chair of the Transportation Committee said:
"He added that if Mr. Moroun begins erecting a second span before the DRIC project gets moving, the entire issue of a new [DRIC] bridge would be up for reconsideration.
Why am I saying this? Two reasons
- Wall Street Journal
"Billionaire businessman Manuel "Matty" Moroun is poised to move a step closer to tightening his control of traffic across the Detroit River, one of the continent’s busiest and most economically vital border crossings.
Mr. Moroun, whose Detroit International Bridge Co. owns the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, is expected this week to win approval from Canadian customs authorities for a key part of his plan to build a second span over the same stretch of water. By contrast, plans for a competing, publicly owned bridge have stalled amid concerns over the potential cost to taxpayers.
At stake are tens of millions of dollars of annual toll revenue and a critical link in the U.S. auto industry’s supply chain.
Customs authorities’ go-ahead for a new bridge plaza to be developed by Mr. Moroun—including toll booths and customs-inspection buildings—would all but clear the way for his company to seek a final environmental permit from the Canadian transportation department to build the new six-lane bridge, adjacent to the existing one. The permit is one of the few regulatory hurdles remaining before construction can begin.
"This was the big enchilada," Mr. Moroun’s son Matt, vice chairman of the bridge company, said in an interview. "We are now 80% of the way there."
I was not exactly sure what that meant until I saw this DRIC-ite desperation note:
2) "What Mr. Moroun is referring to is the completion of the Ambassador Bridge master Plan Study, which was paid for, and commissioned by the Government of Canada to study and develop a 25-year plan for the Ambassador Bridge Canadian inspection plaza. The study identifies Canada Border Services Agency’s requirements at the Ambassador Bridge.
So why would the Government of Canada pay for a report to help the Ambassador Bridge make a case for their second span? Quite simply, it was done because the Government of Canada takes its responsibility to review the bridge company’s environmental submission very seriously and did not want any further delay in evaluating the bridge company’s environmental assessment.
In December 2007, the bridge company submitted its Environmental Impact Statement for the building of a second bridge to the replace the existing Ambassador Bridge. Since then, the bridge company was advised by the Government of Canada on numerous occasions that its environmental submission was deficient in its analysis and that its submission could not be further reviewed without additional information.
To ensure no further delay, the Government of Canada took the extraordinary step of hiring an independent engineering consultant to develop a master plan for the Canadian plaza at the Ambassador Bridge. Such work is typically done by the proponent.
What this says is that a report is out and it is not friendly to DRIC but to the Ambassador Bridge. The "master plan for the Canadian plaza " is for a time period of at least 25-30 years, the exact time period for the DRIC study too. It is dealing with CBSA’s real needs, not the DRIC Engineers’ pretend needs.
Transport Minister Baird must have known about it. No wonder the hurry to pass P3 legislation in Michigan including the suspect payment errr loan errr offer of UP TO $550M that had to get done NOW! Sure it had to be done—before the CBSA report came out that kills DRIC
Who the heck needs a DRIC bridge now!!!!
Remember these 2 drawings showing the DRIC make believe plaza and the Bridge Company’s plan
I suspect that there will be NO need for the phony DRIC engineers’ huge plaza in Sandwich but the Bridge Company’s existing footprint will be sufficient!
It would seem that the Bridge Company was right again. Their new clearing centres and the newest technologies for shippers have reduced the number of trucks that have to go to secondary inspection as I have Blogged before. Thus the need for a huge plaza in Sandwich or anywhere is not necessary. Port Huron citizens and Michigan taxpayers and Legislators take note about the $500M+ Blue Water Bridge boondoggle.
Wasn’t that the reason why the Ambassador Bridge was supposedly eliminated? Does DRIC now need to reconsider its choice? Clearly yes. Here is what Danny Yen, CBSA spokesman in Windsor said that confirms this fact in a windsorontarionews story:
"At present, trucks that require further inspection after going through the primary booth are searched at the off-site.
But Yen said the need for the offsite has been dramatically reduced in recent years because of new clearance procedures, such as line release, where truck cargo manifests are sent electronically in advance.
This allows Customs to review them and when trucks arrive they "can be released right from the primary line" without further inspection.
Very few trucks need to go to the off site, Yen said"
As I Blogged before:
"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 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 positioned 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."
Interestingly, Mr. Yen may not know that a few years ago, the off-site approach was not an issue as stated positively by his superiors.
But here is a lesson in how the bureaucratic mind works because they are spending taxpayer dollars:
- very few trucks need to go to secondary
- an escort has to take them there so that they can be examined properly and not escape
- that is inefficient
- it might take the equivalent of part of a salary for an officer and part of the use of a car to escort the few trucks there every day
- instead, in order to be completely efficient, build a new DRIC plaza and bridge, destroy Delray and spend billions of taxpayer dollars.
Don’t you just love Government!
As I Blogged before:
"But for the Plaza embellishment by the DRIC people who increased the size of the Plaza from 20 to 100-120 acres, the Ambassador Bridge would be the number one choice for the crossing. Now that we know the truth and that the Americans have said that the Ambassador Bridge is their preferred place where the new bridge should go, who in their right mind would spend hundreds of millions of dollars locating a bridge in an area of brine wells and salt mines and take the liability risk of a collapse. Just as in Sarnia, the experts looked up river and downriver but in the end decided to build the new bridge at the exact spot where the old bridge was located. It made the most sense there and makes the most sense here."
DRIC DRAWING
BRIDGE COMPANY PROPOSAL
If I am right, CBSA just killed the DRIC bridge for the next 30 years. And the Government of Canada is responsible for Moroun’s victory!
UPDATE
Looks like my hunch is correct. Here is what the Star reported this morning:
WINDSOR STAR EXCERPT DELETED BY REQUEST OF POSTMEDIA NETWORK INC. LEGAL DEPT.”
No Mr. Shreck. This is an example of the governments outsmarting themselves. Governments have no reason to stop Moroun now.
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