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  #181  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 5:18 PM
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The Ambassador isn't going anywhere. That bridge can stay forever as long as it's maintained and there's no way Morouns would ever give up that crossing. They cannot afford to build a new bridge and nobody in their right mind is going to finance it. So that's never going to happen. It would cost billions to make a new bridge, I don't see how any replacement would be cheaper than just simple maintenance.

The Gordie Howe placement makes perfect sense for the US side, it keeps truck traffic as far away from the center city and residential areas as possible. The economic benefits of the bridge will also be absolutely enormous for both Detroit and Windsor. Studies show the impact will be felt all the way down the I-75 corridor to south Florida. Even Ohio has voiced excitement about it.
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  #182  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 5:28 PM
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Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
Exactly. This was all about improving crossing times, capacity, and efficiency. Of course the U.S. has an interest in that.
I think Canada also had a big interest in getting their most important trade route and a huge chunk of their economy out of the hands of a single private owner monopoly.

There are many important reasons this bridge is being built.
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  #183  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 5:36 PM
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Originally Posted by north 42 View Post
I would really love for Zug Island to be cleaned up and decontaminated eventually. It is such a horrible, toxic looking site that will be right next to the new crossing. Not a good look for the region.
I don't think anybody is going to care lol. Big cities have industry. It's just a fact of life. I passed insanely huge industrial sites on my way to Chicago my whole life, I didn't think of the city badly because of it. Most passengers cross at the tunnel anyway.

I do agree though that it needs to be cleaned, but that'll obviously take decades.
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  #184  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 6:24 PM
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Even Ohio has voiced excitement about it.

It has? Most Ohioans have never been to Canada and never think about it.

There was a proposal by Governor Rhodes back in the 1960s to build a bridge from a point west of Sandusky across the shallow part of Lake Erie to Ontario. It would have island hopped the Bass Islands and maybe Kelly's Island as well.
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  #185  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 8:16 PM
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It has? Most Ohioans have never been to Canada and never think about it.
Business owners in the state have, yes.

https://www.sent-trib.com/news/new-b...aec3869b4.html

https://www.toledoblade.com/business...es/20201211118
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  #186  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 8:52 PM
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Originally Posted by The North One View Post

It can only be a "game-changer" for local trucks. For example, if it really does speed things along on both bridges (saving, on average, 1 hour per round trip), then a truck originating in Toledo or further into Ohio might be able to make two round-trips per day.

But a one-way crossing of the bridge by a long-distance truck saved 30 minutes out of a 7, 8, 9-hour trip. Not a "game-changer".
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  #187  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 9:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg View Post
There was a proposal by Governor Rhodes back in the 1960s to build a bridge from a point west of Sandusky across the shallow part of Lake Erie to Ontario. It would have island hopped the Bass Islands and maybe Kelly's Island as well.
wow, i'd like to learn more about that.

it seems pretty crackpot on the surface, but looking at google maps, to island hop your way across lake erie from marblehead west of sandusky, over to kelleys island, then over to pelee island, and then to the tip of point pelee national park in ontario, you'd need to build 3 bridges of the following approximate lengths:

3 miles
7 miles
9 miles

that's not as absurd as i would have at first guessed.

the mackinac bridge across the straits of mackinac is a total of 5 miles long, and the main central suspended portion crosses some very deep water (~300' deep).

Conversely, almost the entire western quarter of lake erie is less than 30' deep; a shallow pond by comparison. So you wouldn't need to do any super deep foundations or crazy-long (and crazy expensive) spans like Mighty Mac.



of course, such a link would have been of very little utility, which is probably why the idea never went anywhere.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Jan 20, 2022 at 11:08 PM.
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  #188  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 11:47 PM
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There's nothing wrong with the Ambassador Bridge that I know of. The reason they're building a new one is because Canada didn't want a critical international crossing to be controlled privately, and also because both the U.S. and Canada were freaked out about the possibility of a terrorist taking out the Ambassador Bridge.
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  #189  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 11:50 PM
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If Cleveland was a comparable economic and population center to Toronto an investment of that scale would probably be justifiable. Also just from a hypothetical civil engineering perspective, such a crossing would probably be ideal for a type B immersed tube tunnel more than a series of the world's longest and most expensive suspension spans.
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  #190  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2022, 11:55 PM
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than a series of the world's longest and most expensive suspension spans.
In water that shallow, you would never go through the exorbitant expense of long span suspension bridges.

A regular old box girder bridge along the lines of the confederation bridge in Canada (8 miles) would do the trick.
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  #191  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2022, 12:31 AM
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The previous poster was suggesting suspensions spans, shorter length, but still suspensions spans and that is what I was responding to.
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  #192  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2022, 12:51 AM
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The previous poster was suggesting suspensions spans, shorter length, but still suspensions spans and that is what I was responding to.
???????

The previous poster was me, and I certainly wasn't talking about building suspended spans across the extremely shallow water of the western end of lake Erie.

In fact, I just reread the thread, no one suggested that. It's a textbook scenario for endless box girders with maybe one or two high and long spans for freighter passage.
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  #193  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2022, 1:14 AM
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Cleveland was still a Top 10 U.S. city and home to the world's biggest company in the 1960s, when the bridge was proposed. I think the proposal disappeared in large part because the Lake Erie bridge could cut 60-70 miles off the distance to Detroit, but the crossing of the Detroit River would have been via the Ambassador Bridge and its slow approach through Windsor. The other issue is that Toledo - which is of course part of Ohio - benefited at the time from all of the Detroit>Cleveland traffic traveling back and forth through it. Some of that economic benefit would have shifted not just out-of-state but out-of-country, AND WE CAN'T HAVE THAT.

It's interesting to see that they studied construction of bridges straight across Lake Erie, not using the the existing islands. The lake is shallow near the islands but much deeper in its center near Cleveland and to the east toward Buffalo.



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  #194  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2022, 4:39 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
There's nothing wrong with the Ambassador Bridge that I know of. The reason they're building a new one is because Canada didn't want a critical international crossing to be controlled privately, and also because both the U.S. and Canada were freaked out about the possibility of a terrorist taking out the Ambassador Bridge.
It's also 95 years old and totally decrepit.
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  #195  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2022, 3:08 PM
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It's also 95 years old and totally decrepit.
Exactly, just like it’s former owner
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  #196  
Old Posted Mar 22, 2022, 1:38 PM
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A big milestone was recently achieved on-site - the tower legs have reached their full height of ~ 460 ft / 140 meters - not bad for 12-13 months of tower leg construction!

Quote:
Milestone achieved as Gordie Howe bridge's tower legs reach full height
Dave Battagello | Windsor Star
March 9, 2022

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  #197  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2022, 5:00 PM
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The B1M weekly update was on the Gordie Howe Bridge. It's great to see a Detroit project on a international construction youtube channel !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lipnIdz6_L4

Last edited by DannyP; Apr 27, 2022 at 5:11 PM. Reason: embedding
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  #198  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2022, 3:47 AM
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This is the view from Joe Louis Arena site/Riverfront Towers. Pics taken by me June 5th.



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  #199  
Old Posted Jul 5, 2022, 2:31 PM
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Pier table work has commenced on the bridge. If you don't know what that means, watch this short, informative video -

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  #200  
Old Posted Sep 18, 2022, 4:01 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
It's also 95 years old and totally decrepit.
and doesn't have a freeway connection on the Canadian side.

Also, if you have ever driven over the Ambassador, it's completely over capacity. The bridge is constantly full of a massive line of freight trucks crawling along the entire span, even with reduced crossing volumes right now because of COVID.
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