Windsor-Detroit bridge saga continues

The private owners of the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit continue to dispute with the Michigan Ministry of Transportation over whether work on access ramps has been done adequately, even after the bridge’s 84-year old owner went to jail for 27 hours.

Matty Maroun, an owner of the Detroit International Bridge Company, and company president Dan Stamper, were sent to jail on January 12 by Wayne County Judge Prentis Edwards for failing to meet court orders to complete access routes from the bridge to interstate highways. Currently a 20-metre yawning gap stands between a bridge overpass and the state highway structure.

Detroit International Bridge Company bought the 1920s-era suspension bridge in late 1970s, and it is now the busiest border crossing between Canada and the U.S., carrying 7.2 million vehicles in 2010.

For years the private company has been fighting plans by the Canadian government and State of Michigan to construct another bridge, the  “New International Bridge Crossing,” a mile downstream that would compete with the Ambassador Bridge for tolls. Instead, Maroun’s company wants to build its own new bridge alongside the existing one and keep the infrastructure in private hands.