LANSING – An email that opponents of the proposed Detroit River International Crossing say shows the state knew that bridge toll revenues could not pay for the bridge does not specifically deal with the bridge project Governor Rick Snyder is proposing and as such is not relevant to the actual project, Lt. Governor Brian Calley said in an interview.
Instead of a smoking gun to shoot the project down, the email is an example of misinformation from bridge opponents, Calley said. Toll revenues will be used to pay for the bridge and nothing else, he said.
A spokesperson for the owners of the Ambassador Bridge said regardless of whether the project is $6 billion or $1 billion, there is no evidence that toll revenues will support it.
Calley said as anticipated the proposed bridge will be essentially a privately built and run structure, owned jointly by Michigan and Canada. What is ironic, he said, is that the bridge’s opponents, chiefly the owners of the Ambassador Bridge, are afraid to compete with the private sector though they are the private sector.
The legislation to win legislative approval of what Snyder now calls the New International Trade Crossing has now met the approval of the different lawyers working on the draft, Calley said, and it will be introduced in the Senate. He did not have a specific time when it would be introduced, but said it would be soon.
The email in question, which an official of CenTra, the parent company of the Ambassador Bridge said was the “smoking gun” that showed the state knew toll revenues from the bridge could not pay the cost of the project.
The email is now referenced in a new ad the Ambassador Bridge owners have broadcast trying to get public opposition to the bridge. In the ad it is referenced as a “secret MDOT memo.”
The official said the email was found in discovery as part of a lawsuit. It was written on January 31, 2007 by a Prabhat Diskit. Diskit is not otherwise identified, though he may be with the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the email references a preliminary report prepared on the DRIC project from the accounting firm of PriceWaterhouse Coopers.
The email says the “understated ‘pink elephant’ in the this room that should be driving every element of the decision making: Namely, the fact that real tolls will not raise sufficient funds to build the project and therefore some kind of public subsidy from both countries will be necessary.”
But the email also makes reference to “the fact that many more bidders will be forthcoming on a $1 billion project versus a $6 billion project etc.”
It is that phrase that Calley said shows the email is not relevant to the bridge proposal Mr. Snyder is making.
A $6 billion project refers to a large scope of projects, including a new Canadian freeway now under construction, the Windsor-Essex Parkway, Calley said, as well as interchanges, access ramps, etc.
The cost of the bridge itself, based on experts, is estimated at $950 million, and that is the cost that tolls would cover, Calley said.
If in fact the entire project was $6 billion, tolls wouldn’t cover the whole cost, Calley said, but it is not size of a project.
“They claim one contradiction after another,” Calley said. “They present the project as a $6 billion project, and it won’t be.”
Ironically, Calley said, Ambassador Bridge executives have said they could build their proposed new span – for which they have not yet gotten final approval – for less than even the anticipated cost of the DRIC/NITC.
Mickey Blashfield, who heads government relations for CenTra, said the proposed second span the Ambassador Bridge owners want to build would cost $500 million because it would link plazas that already exist.
The Canadian freeway portion of the overall project is being paid for by the Canadian government, Calley said. To say the bridge tolls would have to pay for it, “would be like saying we’re building an extension on 127 north and saying the Mackinac Bridge has to pay for it. No it doesn’t. It’s just a freeway extension, it’s paid separately,” he said.
In fact, Calley said, the same email that opponents now trumpet actually supports the bridge’s construction.
The email does say that it is “more sensible to go with the multiple project approach vs. the one large project approach.” And Calley said other elements of the larger project will go forward. But they will not affect the funding for the bridge.
But Blashfield said the email suggests the strategy used to win approval of the bridge, by calling for it to be presented as smaller projects instead of one larger one.
Blashfield also said the email is evidence that the state withheld relevant documents about the proposed projects from the Legislature at a time when the Legislature requested materials on the proposal.
Calley in turn blasted opponents of the DRIC/NITC for saying on the one hand that traffic studies and economic factors do not support building the proposed bridge, which would be located about two miles south of the Ambassador Bridge, but at the same time saying they want to build their own bridge adjacent to the Ambassador Bridge.
Blashfield said the second bridge would allow the company to do repairs of the original span without having to close it to traffic.
But Calley charged that in fact after dominating the crossing for truck traffic between Canada and Michigan for nearly 90 years, the company is afraid of competing with other private companies.
Under the proposal Snyder will bring to the Legislature, both Michigan and Canada will create bridge authorities and then they will put the project up to bid for private firms to design the bridge, build it and then manage it.
It will be essentially a private bridge under public ownership, Calley said.
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