Ambassador Bridge to meet terrorist redundancy call with floating bridge - but how serious is it?

The Ambassador Bridge company is having experts design an emergency floating bridge to be deployed should the main suspension span be damaged in a terrorist strike. American Consulting Professionals of Michigan PLLC of Livonia MI part of American/Avalon will design the floating structure which they term "Bridge-on-Demand."

Bridge company officials think the existence of the floating substitute bridge - to be available for traffic within days of an attack - would represent a useful deterrent to an attack on the basis that the economic dislocation would be much reduced and the bridge a less attractive target.

Says the company in their announcement: "The presence of a mobile, on-demand redundancy option would greatly lessen the strategic value a terrorist organization could place on international trade corridors that depend on bridge or tunnel crossings, as economic recovery from an attack would be in available in days, not years..."

Scott Corpi a principal at American Consulting/Avalon is quoted: "The Detroit-Windsor crossing is a perfect example of an environment suitable for utilizing the latest in floating bridge technology. The Bridge-on-Demand redundancy system will be engineered for quick installation and be able to handle the full loading of a four-lane highway in all weather conditions. We’ll be engineering the mid-portion of the system to allow for the passage of maritime traffic.”

Don Stamper president of the bridge company says the floating bridge will be available for use across the Detroit River or in other places around the US where needed at short notice: "The safety and security of our international crossings is one of our nation’s number one concerns."

Undercutting strongest argument for competing DRIC bridge

In taking the initiative for an emergency replacement bridge the company is undercutting a major argument being made for the necessity of a new crossing named DRIC and located downstream and some 3.2km (2 miles) away, sufficiently far to protect it from any terrorist bomb attack on the Ambassador Bridge. The DRIC adding six traffic lanes to the existing six (Ambassador 4, Detroit Windsor Tunnel 2 lanes) is hardly justifiable on capacity grounds without a dramatic reversal of flat traffic trends over the past ten years or more.

Some DRIC supporters have stressed redundancy in case of terrorist attack as the principal justification for the $5b DRIC project.  With the enabling legislation stuck in the state Senate the floating bridge project could help opponents of the DRIC keep the numbers needed to block it.

The bridge company's statement also says: "DIBC will work closely with all federal security agencies as initial designs are finalized. The Bridge-on-Demand system will be designed in an adaptable format to work at a number of important crossings throughout North America where suitable topography and infrastructure exist."

Not committed to actual construction and deployment, just design work

The statement commits the company to engineering design work, but not to actual manufacture of the bridge and associated approach roads, trials and docking. If the company is proposing to make the bridge available for emergency use anywhere it is probably expecting others to pitch in on construction costs.

Floating bridges have a long history, going back millennia, especially with armies. They are older than gunpowder! (see pictures nearby) Some were simply boats lashed together but armies use them extensively for improvised crossing of rivers. They are often called pontoon bridges after the airfilled portions giving buoyancy. Modern armies move 60 ton tanks over them.  

A major challenge as in any low level bridge on a navigable river like the Detroit River is providing for passage of ships. That is usually done with a moveable segment of the bridge with road traffic interrupted for the duration of the ship pass.

But is it practical?

Gregg Ward who runs the Detroit-Windsor truck ferry downriver of the Ambassador Bridge speaks for many skeptics. He says that a floating bridge would be very disruptive of river shipping traffic which he says is vital for the regional economy. Great Lakes freighters making heavy use of the Detroit River carry coal for electric power generation along with ores for steelmaking, plus construction materials, finished steel products and more. The continuously strong current in the river (4.3 knots, 8km/hr), Ward says, makes problematic any queuing of ships for bridge openings.

Ward and other skeptics say the whole floating bridge scheme is just political theater and the bridge company has no intention of following through. The idea has been trotted out before, they say.

Senate legislation to "ensure the taxpayer isn't on the hook"

Meanwhile on the state legislative front a Wall Street Journal report quotes the chairman of the senate transportation committee Jud Gilbert (Repub) as saying that the committee is working on new DRIC enabling legislation that "ensures the taxpayer won't be on the hook" in any DRIC bridge toll concession. Given the improbability of strong traffic growth forecasts such legislation will make it difficult to get investors for a DRIC toll concession.

A Michigan DOT survey of potential concessionaires earlier this year showed few who felt the project was viable without taxpayer subsidies or guarantees.  Most supported an availability payments contract in which the state (taxpayers) would take the traffic and revenue risk.

The Wall Street Journal also got a scoop on a Canadian Border Services Agency approval for a plan by the Ambassador Bridge for locating new inspection plaza at the foot of the bridge.

Matthew Moroun vice chairman of the Bridge company calls this inspection plaza approval "the big enchilada" and says that they are 80% of the way to gaining the approvals they need for their parallel span.

He is quoted: "Best case, we would get the (last) permit sometime this year. Worst case, we would have to wait until next year."

That seems highly optimistic - to put it mildly.

Others say the new inspection plaza is something the Canadians want to service the existing 4-lane bridge and that it is irrelevant to the bridge company's plans for a modern 6-lane parallel span close by the 81 year old 4-lane suspension span.

Steve Tobocman a former state house leader says the effort to get a new truck inspection plaza at the foot of the bridge on the Canadian side has been going for nine years (ever since the 9/11/2001 Islamist airliner attacks on the US.)

"To characterize this event as 'one of the few regulatory hurdles remaining before construction (on a new six-lane bridge) can begin' is completely and utterly misleading. There are three (Canadian) federal permits that will still need to be cleared, none of which has even a pending application before the Canadian government at this juncture."

The parallel span plan faces solid opposition from the city of Windsor, the province of Ontario and the Canadian federal government at this point. There is no plan for getting Ambassador Bridge trucks off local streets in Windsor by building a free flow link to area expressways - the 401 highway and EC Row Expressway.

The Ambassador Bridge company also faces major legal problems with its connections to I-75/I-96 and the inspection toll plaza on the US side that are known as the Ambassador Gateway project. Michigan DOT and the city of Detroit have the company in court for breach of contract, unpermitted construction, and seizure of parkland. The company is under court order to produce a plan for demolition of approach works for the parallel span.

The Wall Street Journal piece reported that "the Morouns' timeline (is) well ahead of the DRIC."

But neither project has any credible timeline at present.

The Ambassador parallel span clearly has the best economics and is financially viable, but it faces fierce and determined opposition from governments and agencies on both sides. The DRIC project has more governmental support but its financing depends on huge taxpayer support - that the state legislature won't provide.

Both projects are stymied.

In the next elections Republicans seem likely to take the governorship and to increase their power in the Michigan state legislature promising more fiscal discipline - which doesn't bode well for the DRIC.

At the same time the Ambassador Bridge current owners have such  poisonous reputation they are unlikely to have an easy time with Michigan officials regardless of the election results.

Also Canadian opposition to the parallel span plan of the Ambassador bridge looks likely to persist. The bridge company's hardball tactics have produced determined and bitter enemies on both sides of the river.

Just this week the bridge company sued the mayor of Windsor and all ten city councillors, serving lawsuits on each at their homes. The lawsuits accuse the councillors of "misfeasance" "unlawful interference" and "conspiracy" for voting against permits to allow the company to clear land and otherwise allow for the advance of the parallel span.

see the suit:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/SuitAgstWindsor.pdf

COMMENT: The chances of such a lawsuit prevailing have to be rated extremely close to zero.

Only a complete change of ownership of the Ambassador Bridge and a negotiated compromise seem likely to clear the political obstacles to the parallel span plan. But the Morouns won't concede that. They confrontationally litigate on regardless of their defeats.

TOLLROADSnews 2010-07-29