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Roads: Ambassador & Gordie Howe Bridges

Agreed. He was responsible for letting half of the homes in my neighbourhood rot and sit abandoned. They recently tore a lot of them down, but there are still a large amount of abandoned homes standing which are owned by the Ambassador bridge. He made a lot of enemies during his lifetime on both sides of the border, and he certainly won't be missed.
 
JasonParis said:
One of the only things I admired PM Harper for was charging ahead with the Howe Bridge.
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Still took forever, but the battle to win on the US side of the border wasn't easy. Moroun made the bridge a toxic political topic that forced Canada to finance the bridge literally by itself. Canada is debt financing it's half and the tolls are financing the US portion.

It's kind of ridiculous really that Canada has to pay for the whole damn thing, but that shows how disfunctional US politics is around infrastructure. Look how long it's taking just to get Amtrak Gateway funded into NYC for example.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Still took forever, but the battle to win on the US side of the border wasn't easy. Moroun made the bridge a toxic political topic that forced Canada to finance the bridge literally by itself. Canada is debt financing it's half and the tolls are financing the US portion.

It's kind of ridiculous really that Canada has to pay for the whole damn thing, but that shows how disfunctional US politics is around infrastructure. Look how long it's taking just to get Amtrak Gateway funded into NYC for example.
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To be fair, US politics is pretty dysfunctional around everything except more money for defense contractors.

Canada may have the greater benefit in the long run though, as the toll revenue I believe is going exclusively to Canada.
 
gweed123 said:
To be fair, US politics is pretty dysfunctional around everything except more money for defense contractors.

Canada may have the greater benefit in the long run though, as the toll revenue I believe is going exclusively to Canada.
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All toll revenue goes to Canada for 50 years, IIRC.
 
What’s the actual status of construction? It appeared work on the US customs plaza, Interstate 75 connections, and bridge approach had finally started last year, but what about the bridge itself?
 
ericmacm said:
Agreed. He was responsible for letting half of the homes in my neighbourhood rot and sit abandoned. They recently tore a lot of them down, but there are still a large amount of abandoned homes standing which are owned by the Ambassador bridge. He made a lot of enemies during his lifetime on both sides of the border, and he certainly won't be missed.
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What's more, a lot of the houses were designated heritage buildings. West Windsor would be a lot better off if they demolished the Ambassador Bridge. It would allow for the revitalization of Sandwichtown and for the University of Windsor to improve its campus significantly.
 
ShonTron said:
What’s the actual status of construction? It appeared work on the US customs plaza, Interstate 75 connections, and bridge approach had finally started last year, but what about the bridge itself?
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It's a complicated answer since there are technically 6 separate parts are going at once - CA bridge, CA POE, 401 connection, US bridge, US POE, and I-75 connection.

The 401 connection is very close to completion (if not complete already), I just drove by it today and it's looking good. The CA POE appears to still be mostly in the grading phase, where they're still compacting dirt and installing wick drains to speed up the settling of the fill. They were also doing a lot of utility relocations and working on a perimeter access road when I was doing a co-op term there last fall, I suspect that those are done now. They still appear to be working on the piles for the Canadian approach and bridge tower but it looks like they'll be above ground this year.

The US side is a little more complicated since they had to do some environmental remediation works on the individual parcels, so it's not as far along. It also took longer to acquire some parcels because they were owned by Matty Moroun and had to be expropriated. The I-75 interchange section is still early on, they're currently demolishing some of the overpasses for replacement later. The US POE is still early on as well, with some parcels being in the stage of grading and compacting, but it's not a cohesive site yet like on the Canadian side. In terms of the tower and approach piles, work appears to be going at a similar rate to the Canadian side.
 
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junctionist said:
What's more, a lot of the houses were designated heritage buildings. West Windsor would be a lot better off if they demolished the Ambassador Bridge. It would allow for the revitalization of Sandwichtown and for the University of Windsor to improve its campus significantly.
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Oh come on, that bridge is an icon for the area. It should be restored and put to better use (passenger car traffic only, bike/walking traffic perhaps?)
 
lenaitch said:
I would imagine pedestrian or cycling border crossers would be in the tens per year.
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It wasn't until relatively recently that the Tunnel Bus wouldn't accept bicycles. Sure you have to pay the bus fare (which is separate and higher than other Transit Windsor routes), but you'd go from downtown to downtown. The Ambassador Bridge used to have a sidewalk but it was closed in 2001 due to "security concerns" and removed.

The views from the new bridge would be pretty cool, but yeah, it does sort of go from nowhere to nowhere from an active transportation standpoint.
 
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