19 June 2010

Tunnel's Timing Perfect

Present Windsor Tunnel - 28 Jun 2002 Photographer unknown.

Windsor Ontario - The announcement was about half a year later than expected, but Canadian Pacific is finally pushing ahead with plans to bore a new $400-million railway tunnel under the Detroit River.
 
However, the news could be coming at the perfect time, with Michigan's state senate poised to vote on the DRIC road project next week. Perhaps the threat of rail competition will knock some sense into opponents of the international bridge.
 
It would be ideal if both projects are approved so that all of Windsor's main gateways can be replaced at the same time. In fact it would be fantastic, and not just because of the construction jobs that would generate.
 
Can you imagine the energy and excitement that would be injected back into Windsor and Detroit's economies? With more than $5 billion worth of infrastructure work all going on at the same time, can you imagine how much attention we'd get?
 
And what better signal could a battered and bleeding region send to the world than simultaneously building two new international crossings, again?
 
It would be a 21st century echo of the roaring 1920s, when both cities were ground zero for the economic explosion that was the birth of the automotive industry.
 
We were the envy of the industrialized world back then, and nothing signified that more than the competing bridge and tunnel construction projects.
 
But just as a few cranks in the Michigan senate continue to block the DRIC project, a few major hurdles still stand in the way of the new rail tunnel. Unlike DRIC, money is still a big question mark for the renamed Continental Rail Gateway.
 
Canadian Pacific and its partners announced on Thursday that they have filed a highly detailed, 80-page "project description" with Transport Canada. That's a prelude to an Environmental Assessment that could take two years to complete.
 
What the proponents didn't say is that they don't have all their funding lined up yet. The two giant companies involved, Canadian Pacific and OMERS, the Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement System, won't say how much cash they're looking for, but they expect some kind of public contribution.
 
Why? In part because in the early 1990s, Canadian taxpayers unwittingly ended up funding a free tunnel for CP's competitive nemesis, Canadian National Railway.
 
CN was still a Crown corporation when it asked for $200 million to build a new tunnel between Sarnia and Port Huron, Mich., to get the competitive drop on CP.
 
Ottawa gave it to them in the form of a loan guarantee.
 
Later, when CN was privatized, the debt was "forgiven." Now Bill Gates, the world's richest nerd, is one of the largest shareholders in the tunnel we built them.
 
David Cree, president and CEO of the Windsor Port Authority, CP's new non-financial partner in the tunnel project, confirmed Friday the consortium is seeking cash.
 
"We're not sure how much at this point but they're looking for significant public funding from both the U.S. and Canada," Cree told me.
 
"We're going to make the case that there's significant public benefits to the project."
 
At peak traffic a few years ago, the existing tunnels carried about 1,200 rail cars per day, or 420,000 per year. The new tube would eventually attract even more.
 
Cree said the financials will come out as public discussion of the project develops. But CP is by no means expecting taxpayers to build it a "free" tunnel like CN got.
 
"We're not really basing it on the CN model."
 
That's good, because such an "ask" would be politically dead before the words left their lips. Given how hard it's been to fund a road bridge that every citizen can use, funding a private business asset inaccessible by the public would prove... difficult.
 
There isn't a shadow of a doubt we need the new tunnel. It would be good for the region, and a boost to the two national economies.
 
The new tunnel will be about 30 feet deeper under the Detroit River than the current tubes, and 700 metres (2,296 feet) longer, 500 metres longer on the Canadian side, 200 metres longer on the Detroit side.
 
Because of the shallower slopes, the new tunnel will even benefit the environment by reducing emissions. The reduced loads on locomotives will cut the amount of diesel burned to haul trains up the other side.
 
I'm not sure that means taxpayers should help pay for the project. But we can haggle about that after the environmental approvals are issued.
 
And for that, let's cross our fingers for an early and positive outcome.
 
Vander Doelen.