Have to wait until 2025 to take the "Gord" across the border - bonds being issued

[detlump]

Just saw in Bloomberg, discussions about bonds being issued, date of completion pushed back to 2025:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-05/detroit-bridge-inches-closer-as-project-prepares-to-sell-bonds?srnd=premium

[Richard]

HSBC,washing money and building bridges,what ever could go wrong.

Nice to see though,it buys Detroit some extra time.

[Bigdd]

Has anyone figured a business case for it?

Truck traffic is still like 60% of what it was in the '80's.

And with improved [[for us) trade deals likely,.. we may see less of our cars and car parts being built in Ontario. So even less truck traffic in the future?


Yes trucks are backed up now on the Ambassador,.. but that's only because of customs. Not the bridge. If there were 3x as many open customs lanes for trucks,.. the trucks would be crossing the bridge at 60 mph instead of 5 mph.

[Bham1982]

Truck traffic is still like 60% of what it was in the '80's.

Do you have a source for this?

And with improved [[for us) trade deals likely,..

Once the self-proclaimed "Stable Genius" is in prison, yeah. Until then, the U.S. is screwed.

[Richard]

That’s the thing about it,from the time it was presented the only things that have remained the same is,it is a bridge,delray is no longer a city revenue source.

If it takes 5 + more years and the revenue was based on billions of extra trade,with the other bridge not being spanned to cover the projected growth,does the state now lose the billions in projected revenue?

Or was it paper growth projections.

The bond sale results will be the deciding factor of If and when,if they cannot sell the bonds it stalls,it would not be the first or the past project scrapped.

Would it have been a better idea to wait on leveling del ray until it was determined that the funds were advailable in the first place?

[Bigdd]

Do you have a source for this?

Guess my info is a year or more out of date. As of the end of 2015 the data showed truck traffic down 58% from the late 90's and early 2000's. And total traffic down 55%.

But it ticked up in 2016 [[number being released just last year obviously).


Year Number of trucks crossing the bridge
2000 = 3.5 million trucks
2007 = 3.2 million
2008 = 2.8 million
2012 = 2.35 million
2013 = 2.18 million
2016 = 2.5 million ?


Total car & truck traffic across the Ambassador bridge has fallen 55% from 12.2 million to just 6.8 million between the years 2000 and 2016. [[Paragraph 4) https://windsorstar.com/news/local-n...-underutilized

Truck traffic still down almost 30% from 2000,.. which wasn't even the peak.

The bridge isn;t the problem,... the government is. Especially the Canadian side. They slow customs to a crawl,.. and then say another bridge is needed. Well perhaps. Hard to say. Speed up the customs process so the trucks are going 60 instead of 5 and see if it's still needed.

It's another case of the government screwing things up royally,.. and then saying they need money to fix the problem they created. Perhaps there's no more room to enlarge the customs plaza?

How did all this get started?

From Crain's
"A consultant told Michigan and Canadian officials in 2010 that traffic at the Detroit and Port Huron international border crossings would top 20.8 million trips in 2016 — data that was used as one of the central economic arguments for a second Detroit River bridge.

But the traffic never materialized"

And once the ball gets rolling on this stuff,... it's hard to stop.

Ambassador traffic down 44.8% between 2000 and 2016.

Tunnel traffic down 51.5% in same time frame.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ridge-too-many

2007 & 2008 numbers https://www.expeditersonline.com/tru...lummet-604.htm

2013 https://www.truckinginfo.com/115719/truck-traffic-down-at-ambassador-bridge

[Bigdd]

Richard is on to something.

The projections were wrong.

Truck traffic in 2025 isn't going to be double what it was in 2005,... it's going to be less.

And now you're going to split that between 2 bridges,.... meaning each bridge is going to have 25% - 30% of what the Ambassador had in 2000.

That will be nice for cars wanting to go over the Ambassador,... but only if they keep all those customs lanes open. If they close half of them,... then it will take JUST as long to cross in 6 years as it does now.

And of course revenue that is going to an American living here [[Maroun, not that we care if he looses a few bucks, but still) will now be going to pay off debt in Canada. So a little less money here and a lot more money there. All the tolls are essentially a tax,... a tax Canadians collect from our truck traffic. What's that? $63 million a year? So loosing half of that is 30-35 million dollars a year that we're exporting to Canada to pay for the bridge?

Guess it doesn't make too much difference to me,.. but I have yet to hear a business case that's not based on fairy dust. It's like a Democrat's trade deal or economic plan.

[Richard]

So how does it work with the auto manufacturers?

Assembly plant is located in Canada,the parts needed to assemble the cars are trucked from Michigan to Canada,then once completed to cars are then trucked back over to the US.

Is that how it works?

So what happens then,are the parts trucked over the bridge considered one trade figure and the completed vehicles coming back another another?

Kinda like the US shipped 2 billion in auto parts as a trade number and Canada shipped 3 billion in autos back included in the projections.Equaling a total trade traffic of $5 billion?

What are the trade traffic projections minus the automotive aspect?

The reason on my confusion is because of the news reports on Canada being upset over auto tariffs,but they are autos that were assembled there from parts trucked in or paper projections,subject to the economics of the auto industry.

[Johnnny5]

In 2025 the Ambassador will be just a few years from celebrating her 100 year birthday. Even if we don't see increased traffic, the idea of depending on a 100 year old bridge owned by a 100 year old asshat is enough to guarantee my support for the Gordie Howe bridge.

[professorscott]

Remember that one of the reasons for the new bridge is that the Ambassador Bridge does not, and cannot, connect directly to the expressway system in Ontario. The good people of Windsor/Essex have to put up with all of that truck traffic going through their neighborhoods - it slows down the cars and trucks, which is bad for them, and it is no picnic for the neighbors. The new bridge will put you directly onto a freeway on each side of the border.

[Honky Tonk]

Richard is on something.

I agree...

[Bigb23]

bridge owned by a 100 year old asshat

[Richard]

Lol yea he needs to move over so the younger generation asshats can have a shot.