Battle of the bridges: Detroit Group files application for new span near Peace Bridge

BUFFALO, N.Y. (Aug. 27, 2004) — The owners of the Windsor-Detroit Ambassador Bridge have filed papers for permission to build a new $250 million bridge for commercial trucks less than two miles away from the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie, Ont. and Buffalo, N.Y.

The Buffalo News has reported that Ambassador Niagara Signature Bridge Group — which is affiliated with the Detroit-based Ambassador Bridge Authority — has filed a formal application with the U.S. State Department, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, and the Ontario Ministry of Environment for a privately-owned and operated, dual-arched concrete span in the International Railroad Bridge corridor linking Buffalo’s Black Rock to the Bridgeburg section of Fort Erie.

The ANSBG says it will also build new truck processing centres on both sides of the border, as well as a six-mile road adjacent to the existing rail corridor in Fort Erie that would link commercial traffic to the QEW at Bowen Road.

Under the proposal, the new bridge will handle mainly commercial trucks, leaving auto traffic to the existing, publicly-managed Peace Bridge, which currently handles about 4,000 trucks a day. The shift would ease traffic congestion and border delays at the Peace Bridge, the Detroit group claims.

The ANSBG has spent more than three years studying the plan’s feasibility. The idea really gained momentum late last year when investors acquired several acres on the U.S. side of the Niagara from Canadian National Railway, bringing its total holdings there to 30 acres. The group has since taken control of 100 acres of land at, or nearby the targeted area.

That deal came off the heels of the Peace Bridge Authority’s decision to drop its own plan to build a similar bridge at the same location. “The corridor discussed is not a feasible project to undertake,” Bruce Campbell, Peace Bridge Expansion Project manager, told Today’s Trucking at the time. “The issues and barriers we identified are the same ones that the Ambassador Bridge people would have to overcome. That’s not to say they can’t be successful in doing that, we just don’t think it’s likely.”

Instead, the Peace Bridge Authority wants to build a new span in the existing Peace Bridge corridor. The best-case timetable for that plan would see completion between 2009 and 2011, with costs projected to be from $130 million to $230 million US. An environmental impact statement on this plan is expected in a couple months, followed by a final impact statement and design by year’s end.

The Ambassador Niagara group has brushed off the Peace Bridge’s suggestions that the International Railroad Bridge corridor is an unworkable option that would cost up to $715 million US, and take15 years to complete.

“The Peace Bridge Authority’s numbers and whole analysis is flawed,” Ambassador Niagara spokesman James Kane told Today’s Trucking earlier this year after being asked to comment on the Peace Bridge’s cost figures. “Their cost estimates are ridiculous. We have our numbers, too, and for us this still makes sense as a privately financed proposal.”

— with files from the Buffalo News