Windsor-Essex chamber asks for bridge backup help
U.S. officials also pressing Ottawa for more staffed customs booths
The Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce is joining forces with the Ambassador Bridge Company in seeking federal help to relieve chronic truck congestion heading into Canada. Chamber president and CEO Matt Marchand sent a letter Friday to Ralph Goodale, Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, asking for a meeting in Ottawa.
Marchand also called on Goodale to “provide relief from the serious truck traffic backup problems by opening up the additional six lanes that were constructed by the bridge company in 2007.” Officials with the bridge company wrote Goodale about the same issues in early February. “(Ambassador Bridge Company president) Dan Stamper had written to the minister as well,” Marchand said Friday. “He asked for our help on the file.”
Among others, Marchand sent copies of the chamber’s letter to the CEOs of the provincial and national chambers of commerce, the Detroit and Sarnia chambers, as well as local MPs Tracey Ramsey and Brian Masse in an effort to mount a “collaborative” regional response. “There continues to be ongoing, lengthy and costly backups emanating from the Canadian side of the border at the Ambassador Bridge,” the letter states. “In addition to the increased accident risk this is causing along I-75 in Detroit, and our responsibility as good neighbours not to do that, the cost of all this delay and uncertainty to our business community is huge.” Barry Zekelman, chairman and CEO of the largest independent steel pipe and tube manufacturer in North America, also received a copy of Marchand’s correspondence.
“It’s an absolute disaster,” Zekelman said of the truck backlog into Canada. “I’ve been complaining about this for 15 years.
“It limits our ability to be competitive, it limits our ability to draw truckers to come over to pick up loads. It’s hurt our city. It’s hurt tourism. It’s hurt business.” Zekelman said delays getting trucks across the bridge into Canada cost Zekelman Industries between $3 million to $5 million annually.
The Ambassador Bridge handles 27 per cent of the $400 billion annual trade between Canada and the U.S. A typical weekday sees more than 10,000 commercial vehicles using the bridge. Marchand has been caught in the stop-and-go conditions created by a long line of transports backed up on feeder highways leading to the plaza on the U.S. side.
“I can see it happening once in a while but it’s been pretty chronic lately,” Marchand said, noting the problem lies with insufficient staffing at Canada Customs. Stamper said the bridge company has been “hammering” on getting more customs booths opened for more than a year.
“They have plenty of facilities for use, they just don’t man them,” said Stamper, who has had multiple meetings with the Canada Border Services Agency over backups created by truckers waiting to clear customs.
Stamper said the bridge company built a ramp and six additional truck lanes on the west side of the Canadian plaza “that have never been used.”
Not counting those six, 13 of the available 23 booths are dedicated to trucks.
“If they would open 13 lanes in the morning and keep them open there would never be a backup,” Stamper said.
When extra staff was on duty at the bridge during a 10-day shutdown of the Windsor-Detroit tunnel last fall, “we never had any backups,” Stamper said. Typically, he said, open truck lanes drop to six or seven during the day, which then creates a huge backlog.
Attempts to reach the CBSA for comment were not successful.