BRIDGE FIRM EYES BIRTH OF A TWIN

The Windsor Star By Douglas Williamson, Star Business Editor March 29, 1997

Preliminary groundwork is being laid for a second span alongside the Ambassador Bridge.

It's been the stuff of urban myth in Windsor and Detroit for years.

Now, the prospect of a second bridge spanning the murky Detroit River has taken on the air of reality.

There are developments on two fronts:

- Ambassador Bridge owners and Michigan state and local governments are officially planning preliminary groundwork for a span alongside the current structure, tied initially to freeway renovations in Detroit.

- A rival Windsor group is quietly but vigorously working on its own bridge proposal, according to sources who do not want to be identified. "There is a serious interest out there for a second bridge," said a Windsor official. "Obviously there's a competitive situation lining up." The group has engaged the services of a city surveying firm which also refuses to comment.

At various times in the last two decades, rumors have had a new bridge coming to Amherstburg or Windsor. Reports surfaced again in the early 1990s, when cross-border shopping was the rage.

But no one has seen any evidence of groundwork such as land assembly, said Doug Lawson, chairman of the Windsor-Essex County Development Commission, adding that the commission has received no information on a bridge proposal.

Company cautious

For its part, the Ambassador Bridge company is playing it cautious.

"We've always said that when traffic warrants it, we will consider building a second span," said Remo Mancini, president of the Canadian Transit Company, one of two firms owned by the U.S. family that owns the bridge. He said it could be 15 years before the need for a new bridge becomes acute.

"You don't want to wait until you have traffic jams before you start planning for the future," the former Liberal Essex South MPP added.

As part of a $100-million US overhaul of the tangled entrance to the Detroit road and connecting freeway system, a larger new ramp/deck will permit the later addition of a twin to the Ambassador Bridge.

Second ramp

During planning sessions, bridge owners asked that the new deck accommodate a ramp that can veer west toward a second bridge, said consultant Pat Holland of The Corradino Group of Louisville, Ky., which is overseeing the urgently needed freeway-bridge entrance renovations for a consortium of state and local governments and the bridge company.

"I think that says that it's been thought about at a relatively high level," Holland told The Star. "We were instructed and we've (designed) an approach, that will handle one bridge or two bridges.

"They're the ones who initiated that discussion, but it was obvious to everyone that if we're going to build something for the next 30 or 40 years, that you'd have to have it so it can accommodate a second bridge if one were built.

"The bridge company did in fact say that they would prefer it if they had that option open. It can easily accommodate another bridge just down-river which is west of the present bridge. We can accommodate it within 150 or 200 yards probably," Holland said.

"We're building an access ramp up to the bridge and part of our directive has been to build that ramp such that it could serve another bridge if another bridge was built, and that is part of our charge and we're designing it in that fashion.

"So based on what we've done, we could accommodate a second bridge.

"The place where you build it, is land that they own," he said, referring to bridge company-owned property on both sides of the river. "It's my belief that the existing bridge would become one-way toward the U.S. and the new bridge become one-way toward Canada. That means that the traffic now going over this (planned) deck on to the present bridge would divert on to a new bridge."

The U.S. federal government will pay 80 per cent of the cost of the freeway-bridge entrance renovations, and the Ambassador Bridge company the remaining 20 per cent, Holland said. Interim work should begin later this year but no date has been set for completion of the entire job, necessary to improve what is acknowledged to be one of the worst international freeway access points in North America.

"We've building a new access to the Ambasador Bridge from the interstate systems. There are three interstates plus a lot of local streets that all try to get on the Ambassador Bridge at the same point, which makes it look like a bowl of spaghetti," Holland said. The improvements, including the new deck, will allow vastly improved car and truck traffic flow from the bridge to local Detroit streets and connecting freeways.

Regarding the new deck, preliminary design and planning is done, actual design will begin this summer, and construction could start in a year and half, Holland said.

In the freeway-bridge entrance redesign, the new deck is to be built over existing businesses and roads, Holland said. END

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