Peace Bridge overtakes Ambassador in car traffic; gaining with trucks

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Peace Bridge is now handling more passenger car traffic than its rival, the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor-Detroit.

According to the Buffalo News, through the first eight months of this year, 3,501,489 passenger vehicles crossed the Peace Bridge, compared to 3,087,265 at the Ambassador.

It’s the first time in 20 years that the Peace Bridge is the top choice of non commercial border crossers to and from the U.S.

However, the Ambassador still handles more commercial trucks, giving it the top ranking for total trip counts. The Windsor-Detroit span counted nearly 2 million trucks, while 877,057 crossed the Peace Bridge.

The report points out, though, that the Ambassador reports a larger annual drop in truck crossings compared to the Peace Bridge.

Through the end of August, the Detroit span’s commercial vehicle numbers were down 13.5 percent, while at the Peace Bridge the count fell just 0.84 percent.

The private owners of the Ambassador have been using the declining traffic figures to argue against the construction of a second, publicly-controlled span about 3 km downriver.

However, the Detroit Bridge Company is vying to build another bridge — this one privately operated — at the Fort-Erie Buffalo border.

Yesterday, that plan had a setback, however, the U. S. State Department denied the federal permit to build a four-lane bridge a few kilometers north of the Peace Bridge, near the existing International Railroad Bridge.