Windsor-Detroit crossing slated for $300 million improvements

The Federal and Ontario governments have promised to spend $300 million over the next five years to upgrade the Windsor-Detroit border crossing.
The Windsor Gateway is one of the bottlenecks holding up traffic flowbetween the U.S. and Canada. It carries 33% of the truck traffic between the two countries, and by 2000 it accounted for 40% of Canada’s $170 billion imports and 30% of its $171 billion exports.
Annual trade between the U.S. and Canada has doubled since 1991 and led to strains in the capacity of the bridges and other crossings to handle the increased traffic. As a result the federal government launched a $600 million Border Infrastructure Fund in August. The Windsor-Detroit Gateway as the first recipient. Other border crossings that have been identified for investment are Sarnia, Niagara Falls and Fort Erie in Ontario, Douglas in British Columbia, and Lacolle in Quebec.
The Border Infrastructucture Fund program identified three types of investment. The first is Physical Infrastructure, i.e. the construction of dedicated lanes, local acces roads, approaches, etc. The second is in Intelligent Transportation Systems, such as smart cards and transponder technologies. The third is Improved Analytical Capacity, i.e. traffic modelling and the development of public policy.
A Memorandum of Understanding signed September 25 between the federal and provincial governments set a 60 day period for a joint committee to identify and recommend projects for the Windsor-Detroit crossing.