Southwestern Ont. town pitching in to Windsor border study

WOODSTOCK, Ont. — The city that’s home to Canada’s largest border crossing with the U.S. is getting some financial support from a town east on Hwy. 401 to study the border delays at the continent’s busiest trade gateway.

The City of Woodstock, Ont. wrote out a $17,000 donation to Windsor City Council to help pay for the study, according to the London Free Press.

Woodstcok is expected to follow up with a duplicate cheque. The $34, 000 total represents $1 for every Woodstock resident, say Woodstock councilors Pat Sobeski and Connie Lauder.

Sobeski says border delays at the end of 401 West impact many industries in the Southwestern Ontario corridor. Congestion and delays to just-in-time shipments held up in either Windsor or the Sarnia border are even more of a concern now that Woodstock is home to a new Hino truck plant opened last month as well as a new $1.1 billion Toyota plant now under construction.

Windsor already has spent $2 million on engineering studies and consultants to find solutions to border delays.

Last year, a binational task force decided a new border crossing should be built a few km southwest of the current Ambassador Bridge, which handles the majority of cross border freight in the region.

Sobeski said he isn’t aware if other cities in the corridor would pitch in, but all communities would take action.

About $150 billion in trade flows across the Windsor-Detroit border annually, about 25 percent of all trade between Canada and the U.S.

— with files from the London Free Press