Infrastructure in private hands

I've reported a couple times before on the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit to Windsor, or more importantly, America to Canada. The bridge is owned by a private company headed by Matty Maroun. Lester Graham of Michigan Radio just completed a five-part series on the situation.

Before we get to the series, let's step back a month to July 12 (while I was gone). A bomb threat closed the Detroit Windsor Tunnel for several hours. A pain for those who were diverted to the bridge, but not a calamity. That's because trucks are too big for the tunnel and don't use it.

But if a bomb threat (or a bomb) closed the Ambassador Bridge, it would be a calamity. Auto plants on both sides of the border ship parts back and forth. They also practice "just in time" delivery to avoid stockpiling parts. Disruption at the bridge means plants start to close when parts run out.

There's a comment with this story which says there was a bomb threat on the bridge four days later. I don't know how accurate that is.

On to the series. If you listen each episode is about 7 minutes. These links are to the text version.

Part 1: Is a new bridge needed? Canada is America's largest trading partner, with about 16% of all our trade. A quarter of that trade crosses the Ambassador Bridge. That bridge is 83 years old. Canada wants a new bridge so badly they are willing to bankroll the whole thing. But it isn't just age.

There is no highway that connects to the Canadian side of the current bridge. This is a bottleneck. Canada doesn't like all those trucks on the connecting city streets. The current bridge is the only way across for trucks (as mentioned above). There is no place to inspect suspicious trucks, a big security concern.

Of course, the Maroun family says a second bridge isn't needed. But they also volunteer to build a second bridge -- next to the existing bridge. To that Canada flatly says no. Many are suspicious that a Maroun financed bridge would have zero cost to the taxpayer.

Remember, the Maroun family currently has a monopoly. It has made them very rich. They are fighting with everything they have to maintain that monopoly.

Part 2: Who pays for the bridge? Gov. Rick Snyder says Canada will pay for the whole thing, including freeway connections on the Detroit side. TV ads (paid for by the Marouns) say Michigan's upfront cost is $1 billion with $100 million a year once built. Their reasoning is that various companies -- including themselves -- would have less income because of the competition and would pay less in taxes. But the new bridge should stimulate overall growth, increasing the overall taxes.

But that's hard to explain -- no good soundbites -- to the low info voter.

Part 3: The influence of money. Over the last two years the Maroun family have spent $10 million on TV ads campaigning against the new bridge. That's an indication of how important the issue is to them and how much money they make from their monopoly. The Michigan Truth Squad studies each ad and notes the Marouns are "flagrant in their intentional errors that they are putting out there time and again in ad after ad."

The family has spent huge amounts of money persuading politicians to refuse to pass enabling legislation for the bridge. There was $100,000 donated to the Michigan GOP just 3 weeks before the bills were killed, perhaps $775,000 overall. The Marouns have also "hijacked" the Michigan Tea Party and that has scared off other politicians.

Those promoting the bridge have spent a bit more than a quarter-million on TV ads. This constituency isn't very well organized.

Part 4: Who decides? The legislature killed the enabling legislation. Snyder went around them and negotiated directly with Canada and Ontario.

So Maroun is working to bypass Snyder. It didn't take him long to put a question on the November ballot that would amend the state constitution (amazingly easy to amend -- we've done it lots of times) to say voters get to approve whether the state builds or finances any international bridges. It's not about the bridge, you see, it's about stopping rogue government officials.

Yeah, a vote this November won't permit or stop the bridge. It can only demand another vote be taken. The Marouns have a huge amount of cash ready to influence that vote. As they are spending heavily to influence this one. If the votes succeed they will tie the whole thing up in the courts.

We have a billionaire putting his interests before those of the rest of society. That reinforces my belief that infrastructure should not be in private hands.

Part 5: Living with the bridge. The Detroit side of the bridge will land in the Delray neighborhood. It is poor and surrounded by industry. Much of the neighborhood will be bought out to make room for the bridge. The rest? Snyder has promised that the bridge will come with neighborhood redevelopment and jobs supporting the bridge. He doesn't want those crossing the bridge to see slums on either side. But there is nothing definite until the bridge actually goes out for bid. In the meantime the residents are left in limbo. It doesn't help that the Tea Party is campaigning for "no bridge welfare."