Two solutions

Most “official” folks say there’s no simple way to more efficiently funnel some 6,000 trucks across the Ambassador Bridge every day. But given the delays drivers and their loads face, something must be done to fix the Windsor gateway. Fully 25 per cent of our trade with the U.S. takes that route between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit. Eight per cent of our entire gross domestic product.

Of course, there are ideas. Politicians, bureaucrats, and even a few business people have been talking for years about new bridges, tunnels, and roads. The American company that owns the Ambassador Bridge–a company controlled by one guy, not a government, I urge you to note–says the logjams aren’t due to the span’s capacity but by customs and immigration checks.

A solution, it seems, is years away.

I beg to differ. So does a feisty young woman, former Canada Customs officer Ann Arquette. Her company, Border Gateways, has a plan to reduce delays that could be up and running within 10 months of word “go.” Arquette wants to create a pre-processing station–“a virtual gateway,” she calls it–off the 401 about 20 kilometres east of Windsor, where all trucks would stop and clear customs. Sounds simplistic, but consider this: 35 per cent of the drivers heading to the United States through Windsor every day arrive at the border with incomplete paperwork. They cause the delays, Arquette says, not the slow and deliberate U.S. inspection process. Sort out these problems in advance and you’ve started to fix the problem.

Trucks would be released from the facility in an ordered way so as to eliminate the present chaos on Windsor streets. Security along those remaining 20 km would be managed by video cameras and radio-frequency devices that would sound an alarm if a truck went off route.

The staging area also would be designed to accommodate drivers. Instead of using one of the 15 portable johns the province has spread out along that last bit of Hwy. 401, they’d have proper washrooms and showers. In fact, it would make sense to combine her facility with a proper truck stop, a point not lost on her.

Arquette has options on 150 acres of land and she’s got her site designed. Financing is in place and the area’s best contractor is ready to pave 50 acres or more. Her small team is good to go. All she needs is a nod from the provincial and federal governments, but so far they’re not listening. Nor, it seems, is the trucking industry.

Only the folks at the U.S. Bureau of Customs & Border Protection seem to be responding. The Yanks actually think her idea might work at the U.S./Mexico border crossing in El Paso, Texas. So why not In Windsor? After all, no matter which of the big-money bridge or tunnel proposals is ultimately adopted there, Arquette’s idea would make any of them–including the Ambassador Bridge in its present form–work better.

Arquette isn’t the only David trying to slay the Goliath problem of Windsor border delays. Gregg Ward runs the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry, a tug-pulled barge with capacity for eight tractor-trailers and a few vans. I was astonished by the speed and, well, the peace of it. Compared to the ugly, noisy lineup of trucks approaching the bridge, this trip was a pleasant 20-minute jaunt along the Detroit River. One of the drivers I talked to on board the barge said it routinely takes him 35 minutes to cross and clear the border.

The service was launched in 1990 specifically to ferry hazmat loads across the river (they’re not allowed on the Ambassador Bridge and otherwise must be hauled 250-plus kilometers north to the Blue Water Bridge crossing). Ward is allowed to run one barge 10 hours a day, giving him a daily capacity of 35 to 50 trucks during that time. But he can take 400 when the need arises. He wants a 24/7 operation with two ferries, but the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency says no. Hell, he can’t even convince the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to put a sign on Hwy. 401 directing people his way. The ferry isn’t for everybody, but it’s an awfully good solution for some.

I’ll explore these two solutions to the Windsor mess more fully in our next issue. If only the politicians and bureaucrats would do the same.