By IAN ROSS
If Sault Ste. Marie’s multi-modal transportation concept ever becomes reality, International Bridge general manager Phil Becker would be all for it.
Then there would likely be millions of government dollars for more bridge inspection lanes, better security features and maybe even swipe-card technology for speedier crossings.
While the federal and provincial governments are investing to upgrade border crossings at Windsor, Sarnia and Niagara Falls, very little has changed at the International Bridge since the 4.5 kilometre span opened in 1962.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security poured more concrete and installed more cameras for its inspection stations, but it wasn’t designed to handle massive volumes of international cargo that a Canadian Sault task force would like to attract.
The booming global logistics market has container ports, intermodal yards and major Canada-U.S. border crossings stretched beyond capacity. Sault Ste. Marie wants to siphon off some of that traffic.
Becker calls the Sault bridge facilities “totally outdated” and in “urgent need” of current technology updates, not only for better security but to attract commerce.
For years, transport trucks and American tourists exiting the Canadian bridge plaza were either dumped into a busy residential neighbourhood or left to thread through the city’s maze of one-way streets to the Trans-Canada Highway or local attractions.
Last fall, when Ontario Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield opened the city’s new truck route linking Highway 17 and Interstate 75 in Michigan, she called the Sault bridge the province’s ninth busiest international crossing handling more than 130,000 commercial trucks annually and under 400 trucks a day.
But Becker says it’s also easily the “poorest” bridge of all the crossings between Ontario, Michigan and New York state.
Truck traffic has been on the wane since 1993, when crossings peaked at 3.6 million. Trucks take up seven per cent of all traffic, but account for 50 per cent of bridge revenue.
Last year, truck crossings dropped six per cent from the previous year.
Most of that is attributed to a softening U.S. homebuilding market, stiffer border security measures and fewer American tourists travelling north.
Even local traffic has declined with the opening of a new Wal-Mart and a Canadian casino in recent years.
Like most toll facilities, the International Bridge gets no government subsidies for operations and maintenance.
It forced the Joint International Bridge Authority to announce an April toll hike including a $3 US per axle increase for trucks and buses.
Becker would welcome more trucks to raise money for new facilities. But more traffic also means the bridge takes a heavier physical pounding.
“They (truckers) pay the higher toll because they literally take a toll on the bridge with their axle loads.”
His engineers estimate the 45-year-old structure needs $115 million US for painting, replacing the concrete decking and to reconstruct the American toll booth plaza.
The Canadian Sault has made incremental steps towards branding itself as an international freight-handling hub. But if the City’s vision to move container goods into the U.S. ever comes to fruition, many area bridges, rail beds, highways and streets must be beefed up to support it.
Ottawa and Queen’s Park are parking millions into congested border points such as Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge where one quarter of the entire trade between Canada and the U.S. takes place.
“Other crossings are on major commercial trade routes,” says Becker. “We’re not there yet.”
And there’s no indication if the Sault can tap into those funds including Ottawa’s $431 million pledge announced in January to improve border processing and study ways to avoid trade traffic gridlock.
“We’re aware that other crossings are getting funding that we’ve not been successful at,” says Becker.
The modern security systems like NEXUS and FAST (Free and Secure Trade) will be installed this spring on the U.S. side, but there’s no such plans announced by Canada Border Services Agency. “I don’t get the sense of urgency,” says Becker.
However, he says the bridge authority Canadian owners -- the St. Mary’s River Bridge Company -- are “aggressively pursuing” federal money.
Sault Mayor John Rowswell wants the Sault to have all the intermodal transfer yards, warehouses and value-added industries present in other major cities.
He is lobbying Prime Minister Stephen Harper to be included as part of a national transportation strategy.
“We’re in the centre-third of Canada,” said Rowswell in an interview last fall, “and we want to have the same opportunity as the rest of Canada to sell and receive goods globally.”
The City of Sault Ste. Marie has hired a team of logistics experts to build the Sault’s multi-modal case.
So far, the consultants say pursuing ‘rail-to-road markets’ has possibilities, particularly in shipping Ontario wood, pulp and paper to the U.S. Great Lakes region.
In their interviews with shippers, they report many are concerned about supply chain congestion and there’s ‘strong interest’ in investigating alternative routes. Some would be willing to ship large volumes, ‘if sufficient benefits can be demonstrated, the report said.’
Local businessman Jack Purvis is encouraged by what he reads and the interest shown by logistics companies.
Last year, he built a 60,000-square-foot intermodal terminal in the city’ west end with rail connections to both the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railways. “We built the building basically on spec, hoping it would be proving itself within a couple of years, and now we have half the building utilized.”
His terminal is storing and distributing paper products from St. Marys Paper, Marathon Pulp and some producers as far away as British Columbia who are shipping as far south as Mexico.
This year he’s making a concerted effort to ramp up his marketing.
But he knows the Sault has to prove it has the transportation infrastructure and the business plan before shippers will commit large volumes and government money will be available.
He calls the Canadian bridge plaza “inadequate” and favours marshalling yards on both the Canadian and U.S. sides to queue up trucks for an unimpeded flow of bridge traffic.
Many ideas are still in the grass roots stage and the task force and their consultants must still map out what’s needed.
The first phase of the multi-modal study prepared by a team including KPMG says routing containers through the Sault to the U.S. could shave transit times for customers by as much as four days as opposed to shipping through other congested ports and rail yards.
But their report warns against pursuing opportunities in the fiercely competitive air cargo industry and says marine shipping opportunities are limited since the Sault is ‘too far from the action’ to find additional freight.
