[Blitz]

Yeah, and it would be impossible to do much with Huron Church Rd since it's so built up.
Look at all his crappy properties on the Detroit side, and now he's pulling the same stunts here. The entire stretch of homes and apartments on Indian Road are now all boarded up - it's unbelivable especially considering that neighbourhood is bustling with university students. The only thing preventing demolition is a hastily put together city bylaw which was enacted only to stop Moroun's bridge. He's over 80 so I guess he'll die soon and maybe Windsor's stall tactics will hold until that happens.

John Baird (federal transport minister) was in Windsor today and said the feds fully support a downriver bridge:


The Windsor Star
May 6, 2009
By Dave Battagello

Federal transportation minister John Baird said Wednesday his government is committed to building a downriver bridge in Windsor and dismissed the Ambassador Bridge’s twin span proposal.

“This bridge will be built,” said Baird in a keynote address at the International Multimodal Conference at Caesars Windsor.

Baird said the federal government is “commited to move full speed ahead on getting a new Detroit-Windsor bridge built and will do everything we can to move forward quickly.”

The Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) team includes the federal government in a binational partnership that has proposed a bridge in the industrial Brighton Beach area linking with Detroit near Zug Island.

With Windsor suffering the nation’s highest unemployment, Baird said the regional and national economy cannot afford further delays on the DRIC project. Canada-U.S. trade has tripled in the last two decades, he said.

“These numbers are only going to grow,” he said. “A new bridge means a lot of jobs, hope and opportunity to jumpstart the Windsor and Essex County economy. We are committed to it. We’ve got the money, the plan and in short order the approvals we need.”

Asked about the Ambassador Bridge’s twin span proposal, Baird responded: “I don’t think it works for the community’s best interests or environmentally.”

He said a downriver bridge plaza in Brighton Beach will have more room to accommodate customs operations and better facilitate trade — as opposed to the Ambassador Bridge’s tight confines in west Windsor near the university and Sandwich community.

“We’ve got to reduce (truck) congestion in Windsor and Huron Church Road and do things better,” Baird said.

“There is really only one project that can do all that and it’s the DRIC process.”

He said that he has spoken with U.S. federal and state authorities and believes after years of debate the time is right for full support of DRIC.

“We just need to get it over the finish line and we are all committed to work together to do that,” Baird said.

Bridge company president Dan Stamper said despite Baird’s statements the Ambassador Bridge continues with its twin span construction plans.

He described the DRIC process as faulty.

“I think they have got some real problems how this process has gone that have been unfair to Detroit and U.S. residents,” Stamper said.

Stamper said that the company’s proposal was unfairly ruled out by DRIC in 2005 on the basis of inadequate feeder roads in Windsor.

That problem will be “80 per cent resolved” with DRIC’s parkway plan for a new highway in South Windsor that can bring international trucks two kilometres from his bridge’s entrance.

“Their decision was based on erroneous suggestions,” Stamper said. “About nine of the 11 kilometres from Highway 401 to the bridge are going to be fixed.

“I try to think the best of people, but when they have to start putting their John Henrys on this, I think they are going to have problems.”

While he would not say if bridge owner Matty Moroun is set to launch court action against DRIC, the bridge company is not taking any of its legal options from the table, Stamper said.

The city of Windsor is expected within a couple of weeks to complete a land deal with Transport Canada that would give the feds more than 100 acres in Brighton Beach and much of the land it requires for the bridge and crossing.

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star