Advocate for Improvements of Goods Movement to Border Crossing
Introduction
The largest trade flow along the U.S.-Canada border is by land, with 60% of this land trade by trucks. Major Land crossings are across the Detroit River via Ambassador Bridge, Blue Water Bridge at St Clair River, Lewiston-Queenstown and Peace Bridge on the Niagara River (Transport Canada, 2008). The improvement of infrastructure for goods movement across the Canadian border will require the identification of “potential future transportation capacity deficiencies.” According to the Transportation and Socio-Economic Report (2009) this includes the consideration of demand characteristics and transportation supply of existing transportation systems that include road, marine, air, rail, and transit. The improvement considers the potential future growth of goods and people movement and their effect on the transportation system. This plan, in the next sections analyzes the movement of goods across borders by truck, rail, and marine. This plan also analyzes the impact of the movement of goods on border crossings and delays on the GTA and the Peel region.
Overview of Border Crossings Transportation System and Improvement Suggestions for Each System
The aim of the Canadian Government and the Government of the U.S. through various government agencies has been to improve goods and people movement across their borders. Improvement strategies targeting the Peel Region identify those goods worth $1.5 billion move through the region each day (Dales, 2011). The transportation system, wholesale and warehousing activities contribute $21 billion to the region’s economy. Trucking activities in the region make up 25% of all truck activities in Ontario making the region a major contributor to the goods movement in the nation. The main issues affecting the movement of goods in Peel are congestion and the cost of congestion that amount to $845 million. This problem translates to the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) as it cost businesses $6 billion in 2006 alone (Dales, 2011). The improvement of transportation within this region is under the endorsement of the Goods Movement Strategic Plan and the Council of Peel. The plan aims at improving infrastructure, optimize existing infrastructure and plan, and forecast for future capacity increments.
Road/Truck Border Crossings
An analysis of the truck transportation system reveals that major changes needed to be done for this sector to meet future demands. No major expansions have been done to the Ambassador Bridge, Lewiston-Queenston and Peace Bridges since the signing of NAFTA in 1993. The (1929) Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit is a suspension bridge with four lanes and a capacity of 10,000 commercial vehicles each day (Anderson and Andrew, 2010). The 1937 Blue Water Bridge is a 3-2 way lane system is the fourth in traffic volume internationally. In addition, there is the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry, entailing a barge system for transporting trucks across the Detroit River. It has an unlimited height and weight capacity.
The last expansion was to the Blue Water bridge, indicating at the given capacities of the bridges cannot handle future increase in good movement’s capacities. Another area of concern for road transportation is the increase in security requirements, due to the threat of terrorism after the U.S. attacks on September 11, 2001. According to Anderson and Andrew (2010), the bridge crossing system faces inadequate staffing and a lack of carriers to meet crossing requirements. However, despite these challenges, the system is undergoing improvements to improve its capacity to handle goods movement. These improvements are the use of new technologies like Radio Frequency Identification Technology and VACIS (Anderson and Andrew, 2010). Improvements also entail expansion and improvement of plazas and bridges. These improvement plans are by the US Customs and Border Protection and the Canadian Border Services Agency. This is necessary given that inadequacy of the bridge infrastructure is the cause of major delays (Anderson and Andrew, 2010). The improvement and expansion plans need to increase the window of opportunity for freight shipping to reduce congestion by lifting the restrictions on nighttime deliveries and spring thaw (GTHA, 2011). This will also require the Ministry of Transportation to increase road infrastructure to reduce the distance trucks and freight services make between the urban centers and the border. Expansion should also entail an increment in bike lanes at border crossings to respond to the increase in bike couriers.
Rail Border Crossings
This system consists of the 1891 St Clair Rail Tunnel, which shut down in 1994 after the opening of the new tunnel by the Canadian National Railways. The new tunnel is named Paul Tellier M. Tunnel, and serves major freight services the southwestern regions of Ontario and its neighboring regions like Peel (Anstakis, 2005). This also includes the 1873 International Railway Bridge across Niagara. The rail bridge supports rail freight services and can carry 10-15 freight trains in a single day. This also includes CP traffic and passenger rail services for trains crossing the Niagara from neighboring regions. The main issue with rail transportation system is the lack of rail connectivity to major North American markets. This therefore, calls for the improvement and expansion of the rail border-crossing infrastructure by creating rail yards to increase the efficiency and capacity of the system (Anstakis, 2005). Looking at the Peel region, the improvement strategies set by the Goods Movement Strategic Plan and the Council of Peel will improve the rail freight movement in the GTHA area.
Air Transport System
The Peel Region is served by Toronto Pearson International Airport and the GTHA. Most of the airports land is in the municipality of Mississauga in Peel Region. Since the airport is the largest and busiest in Canada, it makes Mississauga and the GTHA a busy communication hub (Sanders, 2009). The airport is a hub that serves airlines like Air Transat, CanJet, Air Canada Express, WestJet, and Sunwing Airlines including international airlines like Lufthansa and Emirates Airlines. Other important airports and hubs in the GTHA are Billy Bishop Toronto city Airport, Markham Airport, Buttonville Municipal Airport, Downsview Airport, and Oshawa Airport. This also includes Brampton Airport in Peel region, and Burlington Air Park. The goods movement improvement plan entails the development of an infrastructure and market for air cargo industry at Pearson International Airport, which will serve the GTHA (Sanders, 2009). The delays to this plan are the difficulty in implementing policies and high rents airport hubs pay to the Federal government.
Marine
The ports in the GTHA region are a compliment to the truck and rail system. The major cross border marine ports that serve the GTHA are the St. Lawrence Seaway, Toronto, and Hamilton Ports. However, this report identifies that the ports’ capacity remains the same since their inception, and therefore are significantly under capacity. The ports cannot support the potential future capacity and infrastructure requirements of the regions goods movement. This is already causing major congestion problems to marine freight movement especially in the West coast ports, which face high demands from the goods movement.
Impact of Improvement of Border Goods Movement to Peel Region
The region of Peel covers southern Ontario and has three municipalities to the Northwest and West areas of Toronto. The region consists of three main cities, Mississauga, Brampton, and Caledon. The Region has an estimated 1,296,814 population, and is the second largest after Toronto in Ontario. Due to the transportation infrastructure and immigration the region has seven 400 highways that link it with the rest of Canada (Taylor et al., 2004). Improvements to the goods movement border cross infrastructure is causing the Peel Region administration to prioritize an increase in truck traffic for key corridors through an improvement of intersection. The administration is implementing and identifying improvement of access to CP Vaughan, and CN Bramptom intermodal facilities, and the Toronto Pearson International Airport facilities. Moreover, improvements have begun on at-grade rail crossings, and border crossings. The administration has begun developing a Regional Information Technology services to improve the transportation network. This also includes the enforcement of mechanisms for its road construction projects with the desire of improving the management of accidents. To handle the future capacity and infrastructure needs of its transport system, Peel Region administration is developing and implementing strategic goods movement network plans that focus on communication, partnership, advocacy, and system optimization. The region’s improvement plans will increase the volume and worth of goods moving within and through the region daily. It also implies an increase in wholesale, manufacturing, and warehousing trade leading to an increase in Peel’s employment rates. This also translates to an increase in truck activity, airport cargo activities, and an increase in the movement of goods across the CP Vaughan and CN Brampton terminals.
References
Anderson, William P. and Andrew, Coates (2010) Transportation and Logistics Trends and Policies: Successes and Failures, Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario, May 30-June 2, 2010.
Anstakis, Dimitry (2005) Auto Pact: Creating a Borderless North American Auto Industry, 1960-1971, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Canadian and US Chamber of Commerce (2009) Finding the Balance: Shared Border of the Future. Washington and Ottawa.
Dales, Garfield (2011). Windsor Border Initiatives: Improving Canada’s Premier Land Border Crossing. Annual Conference of the Transportation Association of Canada, Edmonton, 2011.
GTHA Draft Report (2009) NGTA Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment Study: Draft Area Transportation System Problems and Opportunities Report, GTHA Draft Report.
GTHA Metrolinx (2011). GTHA Urban Freight Study: Technical Backgrounder, Toronto, Ontario, February 2011.
Kergin, Michael and Birgit Matthiesen (2008) A New Bridge for Old Allies, Ottawa: Canadian International Council.
Sanders, Christopher (2009) Toward a New Frontier: Improving the US-Canadian Border, Washington: The Brookings Institution.
Small, Kenneth A., Robert B. Noland, C. Chu and D. Lewis (1999) Valuation of Travel Time Savings and Predictability in Congested Conditions for Highway User-Cost Estimation, NCHRP Report 431, Washington: The Transportation Research Board.
Taylor, John, Douglas R. Robideaux and George C. Jackson (2004) U.S.-Canada Transportation and Logistics: Border Impacts and Costs, Causes, and Possible Solutions, Transportation Journal, 43(4):5-21.
