Ambassador Bridge - Front Page Bridge Stories

A second bridge will span the Detroit River, but you won't be driving across it until sometime around 2012.

Ambassador Bridge officials confirmed Tuesday the much-rumored second span is a go and could cost as much as $400 million US.

The present bridge is being painted at a cost of approximately $25 million -- slightly more than it cost to build the structure in 1929, says Remo Mancini, corporate vice-president of the Canadian Transit Company.

The proposal calls for a second bridge, with six to eight lanes, to be built immediately adjacent to the West side of the existing span.

The bridge company owns 95 per cent of the homes along the east side of Indian Road. Those houses, in the block between Wyandotte Street West and College Avenue, are rented and run by a local management company.

Homes north of Wyandotte will probably be needed before construction of the bridge begins in about eight years, but Mancini says they'll be purchased only if they come for sale at reasonable prices.

The bridge also has an option to buy the former Huron residence, next door to the McDonald's restaurant on Huron Church Road, owned by the University of Windsor.

Front Page photo appearing with article: With a transport truck zooming by in the background, Canadian Transit Company corporate vice-president Remo Mancini talks about plans for a second Detroit River span. Plans are now in the works for a six- to eight-lane second bridge to be open for business in 2012.

In the immediate future the bridge plaza will be expanded, adding an additional eight inspection booths. The ramp coming down toward Huron Church Road will be straightened and the plaza will be built across the road.

"Our engineers in consultations with City of Windsor engineers will work out the logistics of that," Mancini said.

"The expanded plaza is due to be ready in about two years, and will prepare the way for a new bridge."

Mancini says economics has prompted the company to go ahead with a second bridge.

"The robust economies of South East Michigan and Southwest Ontario combined with a growing North American economy makes this necessary," said Mancini. "And with NAFTA, we're seeing continual growth in trade between Mexico, Canada and the U.S."

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, trade between the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement-signed in 1988) countries totals close to $1 trillion US. It's estimated that $1 billion US in trade crosses the Canada-U.S. border every day.

In 1997 about $120 billion U.S. in trade crossed the Ambassador Bridge, said Mancini. Total trade between Canada and the U.S. was more than $400 billion US, up from $194 billion in 1988.

"Trade between our countries is growing at about eight per cent per year," said Marci Raven, U.S. spokeswoman for the bridge company. "We have to have a second span, and we will."

In 1997, eight million cars and 2.5 million trucks crossed the Ambassador Bridge. That is expected to double by 2012. Bringing traffic from a second bridge span on to Huron Church Road could be a logistical nightmare, according to Windsor's commissioner of public works, Gord Harding.

The road won't accommodate much more traffic, it can't be widened because there isn't enough room and "...we don't own enough land to build another road," says Harding.

Building a new road would mean looking at land far to the west of the bridge, but much of the vacant land in that area is environmentally sensitive.

"An environmental study would be extremely demanding and we would look for provincial assistance to do it," Harding said. Such an assessment could take at least two years.

The province pays 75 per cent of the cost of maintaining Huron Church; the city picks up the remaining 25 per cent.

The road takes a battering every day from 10,000 commercial vehicles, which has led to major repairs being needed at the 10-year period instead of the expected 20-year mark.

Mancini would like to see the province move immediately on its 10-year plan to improve the infrastructure of Ontario's roads.

"I think the province is realizing it has to act now, along with the federal government. This is an international border and the burden shouldn't fall on the city's shoulders," said Mancini. "But this bridge has to go up, and nothing will derail it now."

Tuesday, the Detroit International Bridge Company confirmed it will build a twin to the Ambassador Bridge by 2012.

But there's another group which has also confirmed its intentions to build a second span.

"I can definitely confirm we will be coming forward with a serious proposal very soon," said a Windsor spokesman for the group. "We have a major U.S. construction company and a major international bridge engineering company on the team."

Big money is in place and the company is assessing its land needs, says the official. The bridge would connect with I-75 on the U.S. border, but an exact Windsor location was not disclosed.

By Veronique Mandal Windsor Star Staff Reporter