Detroit-Windsor | Gordie Howe International Bridge | 2,800' main span | U/C

[lrt's friend]

Doesn't this show the folly of critical public infrastructure being privately owned? Lawsuits to prevent competition. Proceeding with construction without necessarily taking into consideration the public interest or impact. Possible destruction of a bridge of significant heritage value. Attempts to monopolize the service, so an artificial shortage will drive up the price of using the bridge in order to maximize profit.

[Blitz]

Citizens Oppose Twin Span

Protesters Gather in Detroit

The Windsor Star
June 27, 2009
By Donald McArthur


DETROIT -- Politicians and neighbourhood groups from both sides of the border stood united in the shadow of the Ambassador Bridge in southwest Detroit Friday and condemned as destructive a proposal to construct a twin span.

“We have so many things in common and we will fight this fight together,” Ward 2 Coun. Ron Jones told a crowd of about 50 people outside St. Anne Church. “I’m going to say to you hold on and don’t get tired. Walk that final mile together. Don’t allow them to divide and separate your community.”

Michigan State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, said the bridge company “couldn’t care less about protecting our families and our children down the street,” who live in a culturally-diverse area where one in five kids suffers from asthma.

She accused company officials of circumventing the environmental approvals process by building a twin span in increments without obtaining federal permits.

“The bridge company has attempted to sidestep this process by segmenting their project, by cutting it up into small components in order to avoid the cost of mitigating the impact their project would have on our environment,” she said.

A message left for Ambassador Bridge company president Dan Stamper Friday was not immediately returned.

Grassroots organizations from southwest Detroit and west Windsor attended the small rally and carried signs reading “We have the right to breathe” and “Twin Span = Double Trouble.” They pledged to work together in opposing a twin span.

“On the Canadian side, our problems are the same as your problems. We’re all in this together, ” said Sandwich Towne activist and bakery shop owner Mary Ann Cuderman.

“Wars last for years but they’re never won until the final hours. We’re down to the final hours and if we stand united we can beat this thing.”

Michelle Martinez, of southwest Detroit, said this sort of “binational grassroots mobilization” was a “powerful” new tool.

“We deal with these semi-trucks. We deal with pollution. This is real,” said Martinez.

“This isn’t a small community isolated in southwest Detroit standing on their little pedestal and waving a flag. This is an international issue.”

Martinez expressed fears that legislators might be too hasty to support a twinned bridge because of concerns with the sputtering economy.

“We want jobs, we want good jobs, but we don’t want to sacrifice our communities anymore for those jobs,” she said. “Our community suffers with asthma and heart disease and multiple respiratory problems because of air pollution.”

NDP MP Brian Masse attended the news conference and assured U.S. residents that the bridge company had miles to go to secure the necessary approvals in Canada.

“A border shouldn’t be a burden in your community,” said Masse.

“We have two vulnerable communities that should be enhanced by a border crossing, not decimated by it.”

Jones told the crowd a twin span would cut Sandwich towne in half and “we’re not going to allow it to happen.”

[J. Will]

It's much more important to Windsor that most of the truck traffic be diverted elsewhere. In Detroit there's a freeway all the way to the bridge. In Windsor the trucks go down Huron Church Rd. I had friends at UofW, so I know the area well, and it would be so much nicer without all those big trucks in the area. They could reduce the number of auto lanes on HC Rd. - maybe even adding separated bike lanes. The noise and pollution would be cut substantially.

[LMich]

New Republican Rick Snyder is continuing the previous governors support, and trying to make the pot sweeter for the ideologically opposed Republican legislatures. If they give up all of the aid we're being offered by Canada for use as match money for our road system, they are fools. This needs to be done, and now. The Ambassador Bridge owner just started running televised interference against the project he's managed to keep at bay for years, now. Tim to put the troll back under his bridge.

Showdown looms over proposed public bridge to Canada

BY JOHN GALLAGHER
DETROIT FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

March 15, 2011

The forces are gathering for a final showdown on whether to build a new publicly owned bridge between Detroit and Canada.

On one side, Gov. Rick Snyder's staffers are helping to craft legislation to be introduced later this month to authorize creation of public authorities to build the bridge, now known as the New International Trade Crossing project. Separate Michigan and Ontario authorities would hire a private contractor to build and operate the bridge.

And the governor's team is upping the ante to win over reluctant legislators.

The governor's office already announced in January that the federal government would count Canada's $550-million advance payment to pay to connect the bridge to expressways on the Detroit side of the border as a local match for federal highway funding for Michigan.

Now Lt. Gov. Brian Calley says that the feds confirmed last week that they will count Michigan's $475 million of the bridge construction costs as a further match.

Since the federal government normally provides 80% of local highway funding, the combined $1.025 billion could translate into billions of dollars in new federal highway aid for a state that has been unable to pay for all the road upkeep it needs.

...

But Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel (Matty) Moroun is lining up his big guns to stop a publicly owned bridge that will compete with his privately owned span.

Moroun has hired Fox News conservative commentator Dick Morris as a spokesman for the project, and he has launched a series of ads claiming that the publicly owned bridge would cost Michigan taxpayers $100 million a year to cover shortfalls in operating costs.

Snyder's team disputes Moroun's claim. Officials say there is no way that the public authorities would be able to tap the state's treasury.

...

[animatedmartian]

Developments in Gateway project
• Video Link

I'm trying to understand this...

[LMich]

Looks like Gov. Snyder has finally geared up to go around the Michigan Legislature to build this thing. They are talking weeks not months for a project that's dragged on for years:

Snyder closes in on new bridge; deal bypasses state Legislature

By Nolan Finley | Detroit News columnist

June 1, 2012

Mackinac Island— After months of under-the-radar negotiations, just one obstacle remains to getting a new bridge across the Detroit River — the determination of the Canadians to use cheaper Chinese steel to build the span.

Top officials of the Snyder administration, on the island for the Detroit Regional Chamber's annual policy conference, told me a deal is nearly complete to construct the long anticipated bridge without direct approval of the state Legislature, and they expect to complete the details within a few weeks.

Resolving the Chinese steel issue, they say, is the final piece.

"This is going to get done, and quickly," said one of Gov. Rick Snyder's top lieutenants. "We're talking weeks, not months."

Canada is bankrolling Michigan's $550 million share of the $1.5 billion project and wants to keep costs as low as possible. Buying steel from China will trim tens of millions from the final tab.

But because the deal involves the U.S. government, there are requirements that only domestically produced materials, when available, be used in federal construction projects.

"It's a philosophical difference, but one we're confident we can move beyond," the Snyder staffer said.

...

buildthedricnow.com

[uaarkson]

Good news. I remember reading that a part of this deal involved improving some roads on the Michigan side? Is this still on the table?

[ardecila]

Compromise... Canada agrees to purchase US steel for the Windsor approach, the US purchases US steel for the Detroit approach, and the river span uses Chinese steel. Individual contracts for the bridge are divvied up such that Canada is solely in charge of building the river span, so the US violates no laws on our end.

Bridge deck segments require lots of highly specialized labor and welding, so the cost difference between American and Chinese fabricators could be gigantic. On the other hand, American steel mills are perfectly capable of producing the wide-flange or box girder segments for the approaches at a reasonable price.

The intent of the Buy America law is not to train workers with highly specialized skills, but to encourage workers to develop those skills that are actually useful to our infrastructure needs. Since we build these suspension bridges so rarely, it doesn't make sense to develop companies with the skills to build them. We'll always be able to get a better price from developing nations with greater need for bridges and therefore greater economies of scale.

[LMich]

Looks like the whole Chinese steel issue might have been a dirty trick, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was Moroun's people spreading the rumor:

Chinese steel in bridge? It's fiction, Canadian diplomat says

By Rochelle Riley | Detroit Free Press Columnist

June 6, 2012

This is so not about Chinese steel.

The latest allegation in the hotly contested battle between Gov. Rick Snyder and businessman Manuel (Matty) Moroun over building a second bridge across the Detroit River was that Michigan and Canada were at odds over whether to use domestic or Chinese steel for the project.

Canada Consul General Roy Norton dismissed that Tuesday as fabricated fiction, part of an onslaught of disinformation and outright lies in the bridge debate. "Anybody familiar with the discussions knows that there is no such issue as Chinese steel," Norton told a group of tri-county leaders Tuesday at the Detroit Port Authority. Ironically, over his shoulder, the clogged Ambassador Bridge loomed, trucks and cars stalled back-to-back.

"Chinese steel is not going to be used in the project," he said. "It's a complete, dare I say, red herring."

When asked why he didn't say anything sooner, Norton said no one in America asked him until I did Tuesday, and that Canadian officials had agreed to not discuss negotiations.

...

"In the struggle for public opinion, the Ambassador Bridge folks enjoy two comparative advantages," he said. "The first is that they're willing to spend almost any amount of money to sell their case. The second is their willingness to tell lies, not to put too fine a point on it -- and not just lies, but big lies. Call them Orwellian ... lies like black is white and white is black. They're inclusive. They even buy advertising to tell lies to viewers in Canada.

"As a result of that campaign, a significant portion of Michiganders think that this is going to be a hugely expensive bridge and that they, the taxpayers, are going to have to pay for it. Wrong, completely wrong. ... The bridge will cost half of what the TV commercials say. But it doesn't matter because the Canadian taxpayer will assume full liability. This is an offer we have never made to a developed country. Frankly, it shouldn't be necessary. This bridge should be as important to Michigan as it is to Canada."

Most important and left out of the debate, Norton said, is that Windsor officials will not allow the Moroun family to build its proposed bridge, a twin span to the Ambassador.

...

[lrt's friend]

$1B Windsor-Detroit bridge deal struck

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just made an announcement on television from Windsor Ontario that an agreement has been finalized between Canada and the United States, Ontario and Michigan, to build the long proposed new bridge between Windsor and Detroit.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windso...r-detroit.html

[LMich]

Well, it looks like there will be announcement, today, that the bridge has gotten a presidential permit. This article finally gives some solid details on the actual bridge:

The bridge: Plans call for a suspension or a cable-stayed bridge, to be decided during the design phase. Either way, the bridge will include six 12-foot-wide traffic lanes (three in each direction), ten-foot-wide outside shoulders, a three-foot-wide median and a five-foot-wide sidewalk on one side of the bridge.

Location: In Detroit, the bridge's main tower or pylon (depending on bridge type) will be located onshore between the LaFarge Cement facility and the McCoig Aggregate dock in the Delray neighborhood. In Windsor, the main tower or pylon will be located onshore between McKee Street and Prospect Avenue in the Brighton Beach neighborhood.

...

Name: In Michigan, Snyder calls it the NITC. In Canada, it's still the DRIC. Soon, we'll find common ground. Officials are expected to select a "permanent name mutually agreeable to both Michigan and Canada that reflects either the long history of peaceful relations between the two countries, the historic connections between Detroit and Windsor, or the commercial importance of the Detroit-Windsor border crossing area to the economic prosperity of the U.S. and Canada."

I'm glad that through the many years of wrangling over this that the sidewalk is still included for the bridge. As for the type of bridge, every time I think about this, I change my mind. A classic suspension bridge to complement the Ambassador upriver would be nice. But, a modern cable-stayed would be a nice contrast, though, it wouldn't be as beautiful.

A photo from the Windsor Star showing the general vicinity of the new bridge. This is looking south/south-east from the Detroit side of the river:


(Tyler Brownbridge | The Windsor Star)

[Innsertnamehere]

this is what the cable stayed bridge would look like:

[LMich]

Where'd you find the graphics? Could you provide the source in your post? Thanks.

Yeah, the final design hasn't yet been done, but there are some concepts floating around.

[Innsertnamehere]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...uture-13115581

[OhioGuy]

Ambassador Bridge owners file court action to stop rival NITC bridge

The owners of the Ambassador Bridge said in court papers filed Thursday the U.S. State Department had no right to issue a permit for a new rival span to be built across the Detroit River and asked a judge to throw it out despite the agency’s decades-long history of signing off on international bridges and crossings.

The filing by lawyers for Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel (Matty) Moroun in U.S. District Court in Washington had been widely anticipated since the State Department, on April 12, issued what’s known as a presidential permit — one of the final clearances needed before construction on the New International Trade Crossing, or NITC, could begin.

“It’s straight from their playbook. No surprise at all,” said Ken Silfven, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Snyder, whose office is party to the agreement with the Canadian government to build the new bridge. “But the bridge company’s interests are self-serving. We’re looking out for the thousands of Michigan families who need the jobs resulting from the NITC.”

[sbarn]

^^ Disgusting. The owners of the Ambassador Bridge are pigs. I hope this suit gets shot down quickly...

[LMich]

If Matty spent half the money he spends on lawsuits fixing up his crumbling railroad station, the thing would have been marketable years ago.

Anyway, same old sh%t. The court is going to slap him down just like they've done nearly every time. He must be pissed that his purchasing of politicians and attempt purchases of elections didn't derail this.

[LMich]

Well, it looks like they chose a cable-stayed design, which should contrast with the suspension design of the Ambassador. It'll have the longest main span of any cable-stayed bridge in country.











FAA records show the tower on the Detroit side is cleared for 816 feet tall.

[Docta_Love]

It's actually going to be the longest main span of any cable-stayed bridge in North America

[seabee1526]

It is a very nice design, and is good to see it finally coming, lots of exciting things going on in town.

I hope to see a strong rail system running between Detroit, DTW, Willow Run and Ann Arbor with the train depot playing a part in that.