Ambassador Bridge

Ambassador Bridge
Ambassador Bridge from the Canadian side of the Detroit River
Official name	Ambassador Bridge
Carries	LECT, 4 undivided lanes connecting I-75, I-96 and Hwy 3
Crosses	Detroit River
Locale	Detroit, Michigan – Windsor, Ontario
Maintained by	Detroit International Bridge Company and Canadian Transit Company
Design	Suspension bridge
Total length	7,500 feet (2,300 m)
Longest span	1,850 feet (560 m)
Clearance below	152 feet (46 m)
Construction begin	August 16, 1927
Construction end	November 6, 1929
Opened	November 11, 1929 (November 11, 1929)
Toll	US$4.75 / CA$4.75
Daily traffic	10,000+ trucks per day, 4000+ autos per day
Coordinates	42°18′43.02″N 83°4′26.82″W

The Ambassador Bridge is suspension bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan, in the United States, with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. It is the busiest international border crossing in North America in terms of trade volume: more than 25 percent of all merchandise trade between the United States and Canada crosses the bridge. A 2004 Border Transportation Partnership study showed that 150,000 jobs in the region and US$13 billion in annual production depend on the Detroit–Windsor international border crossing.

The bridge is owned by Grosse Pointe billionaire Manuel "Matty" Moroun through the Detroit International Bridge Company in the US and the Canadian Transit Company in Canada. In 1979, when the previous owners of the bridge put it on the New York Stock Exchange and shares were traded, Moroun was able to buy shares, eventually acquiring the bridge. The bridge is responsible for 60-70% of commercial truck traffic in the region. Moroun also owns the Ammex Detroit Duty Free Stores at both the bridge and the tunnel. It is one of the only two Canada-US border crossings where people travel North into the United States.

The Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) now the New International Trade Crossing, involving Canadian federal and provincial and U.S. federal and states, was accepted. and the U.S. government approved construction of the second bridge which would twin the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor in February 2013. .

History

After the American Civil War, Detroit–Windsor was a center for railroads in the area. The Michigan Central and the Great Western railroads in addition to others operated on either side of the border connecting Chicago with the Atlantic Seaboard. To cross the Detroit River, these railroads operated ferries between docks on either side. The ferries lacked the capacity to handle the shipping needs of the railroads, and frequently there were 700–1,000 freight cars waiting to cross the river and passengers were delayed in transit. Warehouses in Chicago were forced to store grain that could not be shipped to eastern markets, and foreign goods were stored in eastern warehouses waiting shipment to the western United States. The net effect of these delays increased commodity prices in the country, and both merchants and farmers wanted a solution from the railroads.

The Michigan Central proposed the construction of a tunnel under the river with the support of their counterparts at the Great Western Railway. Construction started in 1871 and continued until ventilating equipment failed the next year; work was soon abandoned. Attention turned to the idea of building a railroad bridge over the river in 1873, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commissioned a study of a bridge over the Detroit River. Representatives of the shipping industry on the Great Lakes opposed any bridge with piers in the river as a hazard to navigation. Discussions continued for the remainder of the decade to no avail; a bridge over the Detroit River was not approved. The U.S. Congress requested a new study for a bridge in 1889, and again no bridge was approved. Finally, the Michigan Central built the Detroit River Tunnel in 1909–10 to carry trains under the river. This tunnel benefited the Michigan Central and Great Western railroads, but the Canada Southern Railway and other lines still preferred a bridge over the river.

Plans for a bridge were revived in 1919 to commemorate the end of World War I and to honor the "youth of Canada and the United States who served in the Great War."

Design

The bridge, over the Detroit River, had the longest suspended central span in the world when it was completed in 1929 — 1,850 feet (564 m), a title it would hold until the opening of the George Washington Bridge in 1931. The bridge's total length is 7,500 feet (2,286 m). Construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1929. The architect was the McClintic-Marshall Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The bridge is styled in a mixture of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne architectural designs, with some Gothic architecture blended in. It is made primarily out of steel; however, the two main towers on each side of the river are made of a steel-silicon alloy which rise up from concrete piers. The towers rise 386 feet (118 m) above the river, and plunge 115 feet (35 m) below the surface of the Detroit River. The bridge is made up of 21,000 short tons (19,000 tonnes) of steel, and the roadway rises as high as 152 feet (46 m) above the Detroit River. Only the main span over the river is supported by suspension cables; the approaches to the main pillars are held up by steel in a cantilever truss structure.

The only bridge sidewalk on the south side used to allow pedestrians and bicycle has been closed for decades (see painting and bridge deck repair below) in violation of the bridge's charter. This was formally confirmed after the September 11 attacks. When the painting is being done on the south side of the bridge span, the sidewalk helps accommodate equipment and decrease the length of the lane that is cordoned off for painting.

Granite blocks, originally used on the U.S. side, were given to the Windsor Parks & Recreation Department, and now grace many of the pathways in Windsor parks

Capacity

The four-lane bridge carries more than 10,000 commercial vehicles on a typical weekday. The Gateway Project, a major redesign of the U.S. plaza completed in July 2009, provides direct access to Interstate 96 and Interstate 75 on the American side and Highway 3 (and indirectly with Highway 401) on the Canadian side. The Canadian end of the bridge connects to busy city streets in downtown Windsor, leading to congestion.

The privately owned bridge company carries approximately 25% of trade between Canada and the United States.

Additional bridge proposals

The Detroit River International Crossing to supplement the Ambassador Bridge has been proposed. Manuel "Matty" Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge, has spoken out against this proposal. He has sued the governments of Canada and Michigan to stop its construction, and released a proposal to build a second span of the Ambassador Bridge (which he would own) instead. Critics suggest that Moroun's opposition is fueled by the prospect of lost profits from duty-free gasoline sales, which are exempt from about 60 cents per gallon in taxes even though the pump price to consumers is only a few cents lower.On May 5, 2011, a judge dismissed the case, citing a lack of reasoning for it to proceed. The company which owns the Ambassador Bridge contends that the DRIC proposal would affect its proposal for a second span which would be built next to the Ambassador Bridge. Michigan and Canadian authorities continued to support the DRIC proposal, since it directly connects the Canadian E.C. Row Expressway and the future extension of Highway 401 (which will run concurrently as a shared highway for 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the future crossing as the Windsor–Essex Parkway after 2013) with Interstate 75 and Interstate 96 in Michigan, bypasses Windsor's surface streets and reduces congestion.

An agreement announced June 15, 2012 ensures the Detroit River International Crossing project should proceed, with the Canadian federal government funding bridge construction, land acquisition in Michigan and the construction of ramps from Interstate 75. The Canadian contribution will be repaid from bridge tolls, although to date no study has shown toll revenue forecasts.

The company which owns the Ambassador Bridge proposed its own twin span with six lanes to be built across the Detroit River. Cost estimates range from one to two billion U.S. dollars to build a second span. The new span would be a cable stayed bridge and would accommodate the bulk of the cross-border traffic with the original span being used for overflow traffic. However, a twin span adjacent to the Ambassador Bridge, by itself, does not address Canadian concerns about traffic on Huron Church Road in Windsor, although a majority of the stop lights commonly cited will be removed by the planned expansion of the 401.

In April, 2013, the U.S. State Department issued a Presidential permit to the state of Michigan for a new international crossing between the United States and Canada. Moroun has filed a lawsuit attempting to block the issuance of this permit claiming that the Presidential permit process is unconstitutional.

Tolls

The Ambassador Bridge toll rate for cars is $4.75 in either CAD or USD.

Controversies

The private ownership of the bridge is under significant controversy since it currently carries approximately 25% of trade between Canada and the United States. Although alternate routes exist, including the nearby Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, preventing monopoly status, the route is of significant value since it passes directly though major metropolitan areas such as Detroit and Windsor and is the shortest possible route from Toronto to many areas in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (plus, the aforementioned tunnel prohibits certain vehicles). In 2010 and 2011, the Wayne County Circuit Court found the Detroit International Bridge Company in contempt for failing to improve the access roads to the bridge and making other required improvements as part of The Gateway Project. These improvements would normally be under the control of the state government, however, the Detroit International Bridge Company withheld the improvements as part of a negotiation strategy.^{[citation needed]}

Ambassador Bridge Area Marred by Mountain of Koch's Petcoke

Detroit's Marathon Petroleum began refining bitumen from Canadian oil sands in November, 2012 after completed its "$2-billion facility upgrade which for the first time allowed processing of heavy Canadian crude oil brought in by pipeline" from the Alberta oil sands. Marathon Petroleum now refines 28,000 barrels a day producing petroleum coke or petcoke and goes "beyond regulations" by keeping petcoke in silos, contained or covered. Charles Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists, own Koch Carbon which purchases the black "high-sulfur, high-carbon waste" petroleum coke stored by Detroit Bulk Storage owned by Noel Frye and John Fry, which uses an open storage method, creating an unsightly three-story high stockpile of their product covering an entire city block beside the Detroit River near the Ambassador Bridge. A railway company and its affiliate is leasing the riverfront industrial and railway property east of the bridge where one of the petroleum coke piles is stored. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) raised concerns about storm water runoff from the site. It is highly visible from Assumption Park, Windsor, Ontario which used to have a lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Petcoke is nearly pure carbon, (about 90 to 95 percent) and therefore a potent source of carbon dioxide when burned. In the United States United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2013 is no longer issuing new licenses for the burning of petroleum coke as fuel. The Koch brothers, who challenge the science behind human activity causing climate change, sell petcoke overseas as fuel. Since Koch Carbon only ships the petroleum coke overseas once a year in November, the pile grows throughout the year.

Gallery

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  Crossing the bridge into Canada.

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  The bridge is each city's main trade artery with the other

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  The Detroit River flows beneath the bridge.

See also

• Detroit River International Crossing, a proposed second bridge crossing
• Detroit–Windsor Tunnel, a partially submerged link between the two cities
• Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron, Michigan, USA to Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
• Detroit River
• Detroit–Windsor

Other suspension bridges in Ontario:

• Sewells Road Suspension Bridge
• Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge
• Thousand Islands Bridge

References

Sources

Works cited

• Hatt, WK (1930). Detroit River Bridge. Pittsburgh: McClintic-Marshall Company. OCLC 43148098. 
• Hyde, Charles K. (1993). Historic Highway Bridges of Michigan. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-2448-7. 
• Mason, Philip P. (1987). Ambassador Bridge: A Monument to Progress. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-1840-1. 

Further reading

• Fisher, Dale (2003). Building Michigan: A Tribute to Michigan's Construction Industry. Grass Lake, Michigan: Eyry of the Eagle. ISBN 1-891143-24-7. 
• " 'Good Will' Bridge To Canada Has Longest Span". Popular Mechanics: 206–208. February 1930. 

External links

• Ambassador Bridge Official Website
• Ambassador Bridge at Structurae
• Detroit News archives: The Building of the Ambassador Bridge
• NPR profile: Private Bridge on Canada Border a Security Concern
• Southwestern Ontario Digital Archive: Subject: Ambassador Bridge (Windsor Detroit)