Doofus of the Day: The Troll Who Owns the Bridge
DETROIT — In this city of relics, one rises above the rest: the Ambassador Bridge, the sole route for almost all freight traffic traveling from here to Canada, and its two 386-foot tall towers. Open since 1929, the bridge is an iconic sight to Detroiters. But even icons have their flaws.
The Big Three automakers so critical to Michigan’s economy say they are dangerously reliant on the narrow, 82-year-old bridge’s continued good condition. An effort to build a replacement, called the New International Trade Crossing, failed a key vote in Michigan’s state Senate last month. Lawmakers balked, even though the state’s $550 million contribution required to bring in federal funding would have been paid for by the Canadian government.
A quarter of the United States’ freight traffic with Canada crosses over the Ambassador Bridge. Were severe weather or structural deficiencies to close the bridge — even just briefly — the “just-in-time” inventory system that the automakers increasingly rely upon could be severely disrupted. Factories on both sides of the river could close within hours: Chrysler, for example, says that engines from Trenton, Mich., cross over for assembly in Canada every day.
“You have a significant bottleneck, the worst bottleneck in the North American freeway system,” said Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who along with a fellow Republican, Gov. Rick Snyder, has aligned himself with labor and the Big Three in favor of a second bridge over the Detroit River.
Efforts to replace or complement the bridge, however, have hit a bottleneck of their own. In a fluke of history, the Ambassador is controlled by a single, privately owned company — one that traces its lineage back to the original franchise created by Congress to build the bridge in the 1920s.
“I believe it’s the only international border crossing that is privately owned,” said Robert Puentes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. (The Ambassador is the only major privately owned U.S. international crossing; the Fort Frances-International Falls Bridge is also privately owned.)
This ad, which was broadcast over and over on Michigan media ad nauseum, is the hysterical shrieking of an entitled one percenter who can’t stand competition of any kind. So much for the “free market.”
As Bugs Bunny would say, “Whatta Moroun!”