Talking Turkey and Greenlink

Jeesh – Gord Henderson’s Saturday column read like an eulogy of the city’s Greenlink concept:

“We’re getting a lot of interest in GreenLink internationally. Unfortunately not so much in Canada,” sighed Munfah. “Maybe it’s about baby steps,” he said, explaining that GreenLink, if nothing else, opened the eyes of the DRIC team and forced them to go beyond what was originally envisioned.

In other words, Greenlink is dead.

Dubbed the “Sustainable road alternative” at the upcoming 2nd World Roads Conference in Singapore in October, Greenlink is  a concept worthy of consideration in urban areas with dense populations and scarce available land, what Gord Henderson does not answer - again- is whether or not it is financially sustainable considering what the International Tunnel Association President, Martin Knights said at the World Tunnelling Congress in Budapest last May:

Our industry has lots of opportunity over the coming decade. Clients are planning underground infrastructure at an ever-increasing rate. There appears to be a realisation that our urban areas need to use surface space more rationally and use the underground for efficient movement and storage.

However, I detect an interim slowing down of the market as clients decide how to progress with planned infrastructure spending in the face of the financial downturn. This downturn is causing clients to delay projects, either because funding is difficult to get (tax revenues are falling in some cases or PFi funding is harder to get) or projects are being postponed, or in the case of some well publicised projects in the USA, cancelled.

A significant obstacle as well for the DRIC.

And Mark Galvin is apparently “spearheading”  the Greenlink campaign in Windsor.  Mr. Galvin made a presentationwith respect to protecting and connecting communities while Nasri Munfah talked about safety and security of tunnels and underground facilities:

Into the technical sessions, these themes were developed by the experiences of those in other parts of the world. Mark Galvin for the City of Windsor in Canada, on the border with the US, is spearheading a community-driven campaign to convince the federal and provincial roads authorities to have part of a new trans-boundary highway placed underground in cut-and-cover tunnels to protect the social environment and the community in which residents and local tax payers must live(7). The battle continues.

I hope Mr. Munfah also addressed the impact a tanker explosion could have on traffic flow in an international border route that is tunnelled. 

You know, like the one that happened earlier this summer in Detroit that resulted in “traffic gridlock“:

HAZEL PARK, Mich. – Flames shot hundreds of feet in the air after a gasoline tanker exploded Wednesday night underneath a highway overpass near Detroit. Part of the overpass collapsed onto the interstate below and spilled fuel burned as fire crews doused the road with water.

But something tells me this isn’t what Gord Henderson was referring to as doing something “exciting” with Canada’s most important “border route.”

But Mr. Munfah did address:

…the vulnerability of underground infrastructure, particularly transit systems, to acts of terror following the incidents of the saran gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 to terrorists’ attack in New York in September, 2001 and subsequently on the London Underground and the Madrid railway systems.

Funny how that topic was never discussed with respect to Greenlink (at least publicly).

But  battle?  What battle? 

According to Gord Henderson the threats of lawsuits; allegations against the Premier of Ontario have been replaced by lighting candles:

“I lit a couple more candles in addition to the three or four that are already burning,” he said of his fond hopethat the provincial cabinet will now see the light and push for something better when it receives DRIC’s lame border plan in the near future.

Hope?  Them there’s fightin’ words.

But don’t worry Greenlink supporters – the Mayor will talk “turkey” with Ontario’s Finance Minister, Dwight Duncan – though I suspect it will be more about an exit strategy for both the Province and the Mayor as it relates to Greenlink:

If the province wants to do better, and Francis has a commitment from Finance Minister Dwight Duncan that he’ll sit down and talk turkey once the muzzle comes off cabinet, it won’t have to look far.

Considering the discussion during last council meeting, I’m sure the “turkey” that will be discussed will be the “economic” losses the city will face with construction of the W.E. Parkway (From the City’s Greenlink submission to the Province):

The immediate loss of the current economic uses on the land adjacent to the corridor itself in addition to the negative environmental effects of the Windsor-Essex Parkway on the residential properties within 300 metres of the Parkway is not only a significant direct economic cost to the property owners but also to the City of Windsor as a whole. The City will lose approximately $1.5 million annually in tax revenue, with just over $1 million resulting from the direct property takings along the corridor itself, and an estimated $500,000 for property value assessment degradation of homes that remain.

That’s at the very least – a $15-million turkey.