View Single Post
  #59  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2009, 3:25 AM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
BANNED
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: San Francisco & Tucson
Posts: 24,088
Quote:
AMERICAS NEWS
JUNE 18, 2009
Dispute Stalls Plan for Canada Crossing
By ANDREW GROSSMAN and KATE LINEBAUGH

DETROIT -- Efforts to improve traffic flow at a key U.S. border crossing are bogging down in legal battles between the U.S. and Canadian governments and the billionaire who owns the 80-year-old bridge spanning the Detroit River.

Last year, 2.89 million trucks rumbled across the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, carrying goods that make up more than a quarter of the nearly $600 billion in annual trade between the U.S. and Canada. In addition, 4.45 million cars crossed the span. For each one of those vehicles, trucking magnate Manuel Moroun and his Detroit International Bridge Co. collect tolls.

The bridge is a critical link in the supply chain that connects auto-component factories with assembly plants on both sides of the border. But trucks routinely line up for hours to get across, with backups that stretch miles into Canada.

Last year, after protracted cross-border discussions, the U.S. and Canadian governments settled on plans for a new, publicly owned bridge that would be located less than two miles south of the existing bridge. The governments, along with some influential business groups like the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, say the second bridge is needed to accommodate increased traffic and allay security concerns raised after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Mr. Moroun's company concedes that the Ambassador Bridge is in need of repair, but he would like to be the one to build and own its replacement.

In recent weeks, Mr. Moroun's company has filed multiple lawsuits seeking to block the publicly funded bridge, while also moving ahead with its own proposal to expand the Ambassador Bridge by adding a second, parallel span.

Last month, Detroit International Bridge sued the Federal Highway Administration in federal court to stop the public bridge-building project. And this week, it sued the Michigan Department of Transportation in a Michigan circuit court in an attempt to block it. The lawsuits argue that the projections of increased traffic are exaggerated and that a second bridge would effectively drive the Ambassador out of business. The FHA and Michigan DOT don't comment on ongoing lawsuits, but both agencies have said two crossings are necessary.

Dan Stamper, president of Detroit International Bridge, says the company has already invested more than $500 million in its expansion project, based on discussions in the early 1990s with the Michigan DOT and the city of Detroit that he says endorsed the expansion of the Ambassador Bridge because of its age.

Mr. Moroun took over full ownership of the bridge in 1979 after buying out investor Warren Buffett's stake. By then, he had already built a fortune in the trucking business. Many of his companies, which are concentrated in transportation, are based in an unmarked former elementary school in the Detroit suburb of Warren.

The disputes leave the fate of both planned crossings in doubt. Both still need approval from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Canadian transport ministry, the Canadian cabinet and U.S. President Barack Obama. Officials working on the publicly owned bridge say they hope to start construction next year, but they would need to get a series of laws through the Michigan Legislature and win their court battles with Detroit International Bridge.

Mr. Moroun's company has already begun building the approach to the twin Ambassador span, but the project faces obstacles of its own. On Monday, the Coast Guard said it is putting its review of the bridge expansion on hold until the legal disputes are resolved.

The Canadian government, which strongly favors the new publicly owned bridge project, says it has been waiting for 18 months for Mr. Moroun's company to show how it would fix "adverse community impacts" caused by the expansion of its bridge. For example, the city of Windsor -- across the river, just south of Detroit -- is worried about more truck traffic going through residential neighborhoods and the absence of space to build an inspection plaza.

"There has been a great marketing campaign by the Ambassador Bridge to assume the inevitability that twinning is going to happen," said Brian Masse, a Canadian parliamentarian representing Windsor. But "they have barely even begun the process on the Canadian side."

Mr. Stamper, however, said that based on the legislation and permits in place in 1927 when construction on the Ambassador Bridge began, his company doesn't require any further permission to build. "I don't see any issue of completing the bridge on either side," Mr. Stamper said in an interview. "We believe we have clearance both in Canada and the U.S."

Write to Andrew Grossman at andrew.grossman@wsj.com and Kate Linebaugh at kate.linebaugh@wsj.com
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1245...myyahoo_module
Reply With Quote