A new bridge for the Windsor-Detroit crossing

The Ambassador Bridge, linking Windsor to Detroit, is privately owned by Michigan-based businessman Matty Moroun. He profits from a generous 60 million dollars annually, in toll revenues and it’s no big surprise since this bridge serves North America’s busiest trade corridor, handling 500 million dollars daily.

So the Windsor-Detroit link is very important, for both Canada and the United States but there’s a huge problem. As it stands, the bridge is a bidirectional traffic nightmare featuring ongoing bottlenecks and congestion that doesn’t even spare the trucking industry which is hurting badly from this state of affairs.

In short, the clogged Windsor-Detroit crossing is a heavy barrier to both trade and travel.

Matty Moroun knows this and he’s planning another “twin-span” bridge to be erected just a few meters from the current 79-years-old Ambassador Bridge but his plans aren’t moving fast enough so the DRIC has studied alternative locations to build a new bridge, intended to resolve the massive traffic problems at the border, on both sides.

After evaluating several routes, the DRIC is said to have chosen a preferential corridor that spans from Brighton Beach, on Canada’s side of the Detroit River and lands just northeast of Zug Island, on the US side, to then travel into a plaza located in an industrial area of Detroit known as Delray.

So who’s part of DRIC?

Decisive public partners such as Transport Canada, the Ontarian Ministry of Transportation, the US Federal Highway Administration as well as the Michigan Department of Transportation are in charge of the Detroit River International Crossing Project (DRIC) binational border transportation partnership group.

The entire end-to-end project, including the Windsor-Essex Parkway, is anticipated to cost 5 billion dollars and create up to 25,000 person years of employment — this is very good news for both Windsor and Detroit workers. The final say on the new bridge’s location will however be officially announced sometime in the summer of 2008 by officials from both sides of the border.

Get a feel for the whole project with the following images from the WEParkway web site:

It’s important to note that Canada is experiencing its second-longest period of economic expansion in history. That’s mainly why Canada is investing in such modern, world-class infrastructure projects in order to foster a stronger economy, a cleaner environment and hopefully safer, more prosperous communities.

While the new bridge isn’t built yet, commuters and truckers on both sides of the border will benefit from a massively upgraded crossborder highway transportation system.

Tags: ambassador bridge, windsor, detroit, bridge, north american, trade, travel, border, prosperity