More Border Stories

TRAFFIC VOLUMES



Before Sean O'Dell breathes a big sigh of relief that traffic numbers are improving at the Ambassador Bridge, let's not get too carried away.



We need to look back to 1999 and see how well we are doing with the economic recovery.



Jan/Feb Car and Truck Volume 1999----1,695,740



Jan/Feb Car and Truck Volume 2010----1,035,738



Difference----660,002.



Daily average vehicles 1999---28,741



Daily average vehicles 2010---17,555



Remember that the major justification for a DRIC bridge is capacity. With such a huge percentage drop since 1999, with pre-clearance, moving customs away from the border, and with FAST and NEXUS, one still has to wonder why a DRIC bridge is needed.



TUNNEL DEAL WITH DETROIT

• "Detroit-Windsor [have] suffered badly. Average daily traffic this year has been just 9.6k compared to 11.5k/day in the first two months of 2009. They were doing 15k/day back in 2006."

In 1999, the average was 25,092.



How again, could Edgar (aka Eddie) justify even contemplating spending US$75M for managing the US half of the Tunnel.



Can you imagine the dire situation this City would be in financially if Edgar's deal had gone through.

Entrepreneurs like this, young or otherwise, are not needed using my taxpayer money, thank you.



TRAFFIC FORECASTING



We know already that the DRIC FEIS numbers are off by 10% from the Wilbur Smith numbers after only about a year and a half. It might be interesting for Michigan Legislators to remember what Danish professor Bent Flyvbjerg and his colleagies had to say about "Inaccuracy in Traffic Forecasts"

• ABSTRACT This paper presents results from the first statistically significant study of traffic forecasts in transportation infrastructure projects. The sample used is the largest of its kind, covering 210 projects in 14 nations worth US$58 billion.
  
  
  
  The study shows with very high statistical significance that forecasters generally do a poor job of estimating the demand for transportation infrastructure projects. The result is substantial downside financial and economic risk.
  
  
  
  Forecasts have not become more accurate over the 30-year period studied. If techniques and skills for arriving at accurate demand forecasts have improved over time, as often claimed by forecasters, this does not show in the data...
  
  
  
  For 50% of road projects, the difference between actual and forecasted traffic is more than ±20%; for 25% of road projects, the difference is larger than ±40%...
  
  
  
  But for both rail and road projects, the risk is substantial that demand forecasts are incorrect by a large margin... Highly inaccurate traffic forecasts combined with large standard deviations translate into large financial and economic risks. But such risks are typically ignored or downplayed by planners and decision-makers, to the detriment of social and economic welfare.

DOES SHE OR DOESN'T SHE

Where are all of the Michigan investigative journalists finding out the truth to this story:

• "Tlaib’s father says she lied on election forms
  
  
  
  State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first term legislator from Detroit who has made a name for herself by taking on Matty Moroun and his plan to build a second span of the Ambassador Bridge in her district, is now under attack from her own father, who says his daughter lied about her residency in Detroit at the time she filed to run for office. The Detroit News reports:
  
  
  
  Now Tlaib’s father is piping in. He said his daughter misrepresented her residency when she signed an election affidavit in 2008 with the Wayne County Clerk claiming she was a citizen of Detroit.
  
  
  
  According to that affidavit, Tlaib claimed she lived at 9123 Rathbone in Detroit. That house is owned in part by her father, Harbi Elabed, and he now says she did not live there and he was only recently made aware that she had claimed so. “She lied,” said Elabed, 61, an immigrant from Jerusalem and father of 14 who prides himself on Old World values of parental fealty. “She lied big-time to get elected. I never teach her that way. I teach her the right way. It’s my house. She didn’t live there. She lived in Dearborn in her house with her husband and boy.”
  
  
  
  Dearborn is not a part of the 12th House District that Tlaib was elected to represent.
  
  
  
  Her brother, however, is weighing in on his sister’s side, telling the News that Tlaib lived in that house with him for a year and saying, “My father’s crazy.”

Oh, I guess they are all too busy trying to find the latest Moroun dirt to be worried about what whether Tlaib did or did not.