PORT HURON, Mich. — Officials at the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, Ont. and Port Huron, Mich. say they will go on the record in support of a third, “hybrid” proposal in an attempt to correct the American Plaza infrastructure problems that have plagued the border crossing for over a decade.

TodaysTrucking.com has obtained an advance copy of a statement by the Blue Water Bridge authority that backs a “Hybrid Alternative” redevelopment plan floated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection rather than two other controversial proposals on the table.

The ongoing environmental impact study process has presented two options for improving the American Plaza:

“Alternative 2” would construct the facility on the existing plaza site by lowering all plaza operations to the ground. The plaza would be expanded from 15 acres to more than 80 acres by buying 150 homes, about 40 businesses, and closing or rerouting as many as 13 streets.

A hybrid plaza redevelopment plan floated by CBP would have
the least impact on both sides of the border, say Blue Water officials

The other, Alternative 3, proposal would move the port of entry about 1.5 miles west of the border and create a secure highway from the Blue Water Bridge to the new plaza. This option would impact about 50 houses and 20 businesses.

In response, CBP submitted a separate “hybrid” proposal as a compromise to reduce the residential impacts regarding Alternative 2 and to address the security issues the customs agency associated with the other plan. The CBP option still expands the size of the current facility by constructing partially on the existing site with a smaller footprint than proposed in Alternative 2.

“Although the full impact of the proposal has not been fully evaluated, initial observations indicate that the alternative proposal requires a land area 30 percent smaller than Alternative 2, addresses access issues raised by the City of Port Huron, and requires the relocation of substantially fewer homes and businesses,” states the BWBA submission, which will be officially presented to the Federal Highway Administration sometime this week.

With its backing of the CBP blueprint, the bridge authority is also withdrawing its prior support of the plan to relocate the plaza.

It’s been generally recognized for years that the existing American Plaza port of entry is inadequate for processing current (and projected) volumes of traffic. The problem, according to the bridge authority, is that the design of the existing plaza restricts traffic westbound into the U.S. from the Canadian Hwy. 402 to one lane.

The plaza’s initial configuration was designed for the original single span of the Blue Water Bridge — a cantilever truss bridge across the St. Clair River opened in 1938, (and upgraded in 1999). A second twin span — a three-lane tied arch bridge — was constructed in 1997 to increase border-crossing capacity.

“It is clear that until the American Plaza design deficiencies are corrected, the full potential of the twinning of the Blue Water Bridge Gateway cannot be achieved and the full benefit of the investments already made cannot be realized,” read the BWBA statement.

The BWBA is now urging federal government officials to include the hybrid alternative in their ongoing environmental impact study (EIS). An updated streamlined process should include the new proposal in the draft EIS, the BWBA insists, and a public hearing to discuss the option should be held by November 2006,

While the authority acknowledges some procedural issues could arise regarding the introduction of an additional alternative at this point in the study, it notes there are no rules that preclude the consideration of a new plan. Also, since the “Hybrid Alternative” is a scaled down version of “Alternative 2,” there should be little impact in including the proposal at this time, according the statement.