New US-Canada bridge at Detroit - Canada desperate for it!?

[Oscar]

New U.S.-Canada bridge will carve through one of Detroit’s loneliest neighborhoods

[ http://grist.org/cities/new-u-s-canada- ... hborhoods/ ]

By Suzanne Jacobs on 1 Apr 2015 3 comments

EXCERPT:

The U.S. and Canada announced back in 2004 that they needed a new or expanded crossing over the Detroit River to ease the Ambassador Bridge bottleneck. By 2008, the two countries had decided on a new $2 billion bridge connecting Highway 401 in Windsor, Ontario, to I-75 in Detroit, through Delray. [ http://www.partnershipborderstudy.com/pdf/PR-FEIS.pdf ] The project stalled for a few years as the Ambassador Bridge’s billionaire owner waged a long, expensive war against the new crossing in the hopes of maintaining his own monopoly over the river. But plans for the publicly owned bridge are finally moving forward.

In February, Canada agreed to pay for the $250 to $300 million U.S. plaza in Delray after having already agreed to bankroll the rest of the bridge. [ http://michiganradio.org/post/bridging- ... an-dollars ] The U.S. has been slow to pony up cash for the project, but Canada is desperate to get the ball rolling [ http://michiganradio.org/post/canadas-n ... ver-bridge ] and is going to let the U.S. pay it back over time with toll revenue. [ http://michiganradio.org/post/o-canada- ... -debt-thee ]

Meanwhile, the project has been looming over the residents of Delray. For years, they’ve been hearing about the chunk of land it’ll require, [ http://www.partnershipborderstudy.com/p ... IC_ROD.pdf ] the thousands of construction jobs it’ll bring to Michigan, the thousands of trucks it’ll usher through the neighborhood. About 700 Delray residents will have to move to make way for the 170-acre customs plaza, and those who remain will have to live with the bridge.

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This video from the Community Development Advocates of Detroit gives you some indication of what the bridge will mean for people who live in the community:

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And so, after decades of industry encroaching on their neighborhood, destroying their air, and sending their property values plummeting, Delray residents are left bracing for what could be another deathblow. It seems the U.S. still has a thing or two to learn about the utterly destructive nature of urban freeways. [ http://grist.org/cities/goodbye-ways-th ... -freeways/ ]

Who knows? Maybe Delray will get lucky this time. Maybe in 10 years, trucks crossing over from that beautiful green parkway in Canada will enter the U.S. not through a rundown and neglected neighborhood, but through a revived Delray. At this point, your guess is as good as theirs.