Stephanie Wang, an SFPA summer fellow at the Daily Caller, has written a story about Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed bridge to Canada. The bridge would be paid for by federal taxes and a loan from Canada:
And while Snyder has plugged the bridge project as a freebie for Michiganders, the $2 billion in federal government funds isn’t exactly free money.
“Last time I checked,” Mickey Blashfield, director of governmental relations for the existing Ambassador Bridge, told the Detroit Free Press, “Michigan taxpayers are also federal taxpayers.”
Construction on the bridge is expected to take 48-52 months.
Gov. Snyder has argued that the three existing routes between Canada and Michigan — including two bridges, a tunnel and a railway crossing — can’t handle the high traffic volume already in existence.
But Blashfield told The Daily Caller that most traffic delays are caused by post-9/11 changes in customs policies.
Gary Wolfram, a Hillsdale College professor of economics and public policy, released a report for the Ambassador Bridge showing that traffic has significantly decreased from a peak of 12.44 million vehicles in 1999. In 2010, the bridge carried just 7.23 million.
The number of crossings along the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is also down from its 1999 peak of 9.6 million, carrying just 3.6 million vehicles two years ago. The Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron peaked in 2000 at about 6 million crossings; in 2010, that number was down to 4.7 million.
“Given the fact that traffic at all three crossings (not counting the rail crossing) is down substantially from 1999, with little sign that it can recover even in the next decade,” said Wolfram, “the likely scenario is that the new government [funded] bridge will primarily drain traffic from the existing crossings.”
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