Bridge closure points to need for DRIC, more crossing capacity

SARNIA, Ont. – Proponents of a new public bridge at the Windsor-Detroit Gateway say the three day-closure at the nearby Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia highlights the importance of adding redundancy at the busiest border crossing in the world.

"As the recent closure of the Blue Water Bridge to commercial traffic illustrates, there is an urgent need to ensure that there is an alternative crossing to handle traffic, especially just-in-time delivery," Transport Canada’s Mark Butler told todaystrucking.com this morning. "The new Detroit River International Crossing will … help ensure that Canada’s key trade artery with the United States remains open."

The Blue Water Bridge remained closed this morning as emergency crews and tow trucks worked to remove about 200 tractor-trailers and 120 cars that were stranded on Hwy. 402 when a severe winter storm blasted the region on Monday.

The eastbound lanes of the 402 are open from Oil Heritage Road to Hwy. 401, but on Wednesday morning, westbound lanes remain closed from the Blue Water Bridge and the border crossing itself remained shut down.

Police say they expect it to reopen sometime on Wednesday. Though, as of noon today, the Canada Border Services’ website on border crossing wait times indicated that there was still no estimated time on the reopening of Hwy. 402.

Trucks not stuck on Hwy. 402 were being rerouted to the Ambassador Bridge, creating seven-mile long lineups at the Windsor-Detroit gateway earlier this week.

The Detroit International Bridge Co., owner and operator of the Ambassador Bridge, announced that it opened all available U.S. customs booths to handle the extra traffic.

On Tuesday, several auto plants were forced to shut down because of the Blue Water closure and truck delays on the Ambassador.

Doug Switzer of the Ontario Trucking Association, a big booster of the DRIC bridge, says the delays and related manufacturing shutdowns shows just how vulnerable the Windsor-Detroit border is to emergencies or sudden overcapacity.

"Throughout the debate over the need for a second bridge between Windsor and Detroit, OTA has repeatedly pointed out the need for additional capacity in order to provide redundancy," Switzer tells us. "The events of the last 36 hours with the closure of the 402 and the long backups in Windsor and the resulting shutdown of manufacturing plants has underlined in a very dramatic way how fragile our cross border supply chain is, and why we have to build the DRIC bridge."

The DRIC project was dealt a blow earlier this month when the final day of Michigan’s "lame duck" Senate session came and went without a vote to authorize the new public bridge.

It’s likely a new bill to approve the bridge will be reintroduced in 2011, but it could face even stiffer opposition with the House, Senate and governorship now under Republican leadership.

State Republicans and a few Democrats are reportedly partial to Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel "Matty" Moroun, who has been lobbying to stop the DRIC for a decade.