Of course, this would be a bridge to somewhere if you're looking from the United States to Canada. But a bridge to nowhere if you're from the other side.
Over the past six months, the debate has heated up again about the need for a second international bridge crossing in the Detroit area. The Ambassador Bridge is currently eighty-something, and cannot handle the "increased" truck traffic that has appeared recently. The Ambassador Bridge owner (Marty Mouron), who many claim is imperialistic, wants to build the second span right next to the current bridge, which would only be used in emergencies. Two bridges within yards of each other, with a completely different design, would just reek havoc to the eye.
Looks are not the focus here, though. The alternate site chosen for a span is from Sandwich, Ontario to Delray. Yes, Delray, the poorest part of Detroit, one where you wouldn't be caught dead during the daylight hours.
It was (and still is) an embarassment coming back to Michigan from Canada. Once you pass inspection, you're thrown right into a neighborhood of burnt-shell housing and one car-gobbling pothole after another. What's the first hotel you'd see? The Hotel Yorba, which doesn't look like it's been updated in 50 years. What a distressing image.
But what do you get in Delray? Entire city blocks of overgrown weeds, more burnt-shell housing, and factory pollution. And virtually NO highway infrastructure in place. You trust the rickety Rouge River Bridge enough to place more Canada-bound traffic on it?
At least the Ambassador site has some infrastructure in place, it's already acquired its space, and it's already thought ahead by building the bridge & piers already right to the water's edge. So the stub of the bridge is technically already in place. Argument over?
You would think so, but it's not. One just has to judge Mouron's track record & personality (and longtime residents already have that burned into their minds) to question his motives right away. Development of land? It took him over 20 years to acknowledge there may be something wrong with the abandoned Michigan Central train station. Unsecured, unsanitary and unsafe. Twenty years where he could have made a difference, and did not -- where it's been him against the people. An eighty-year old man won't change his ways unless more greenbacks are exchanged.
But do travellers want a good first impression, especially during a first visit to our country? Undoubtedly. But they won't get it in Delray. Does anybody down there care what their properties look like? Do they even mow the vacant fields? A bridge there certainly isn't going to motivate the people.
Detroit, Windsor, Mouron, members of the Detroit International Bridge Commission and others should turn to Port Huron and ask them how they made the doubling of the Blue Water Bridge crossing work. They fit in seamlessly with their environment. You can get off the bridge and go to a store - unarmed and unafraid. And you won't find their City Council in the news every day.
If we are so important to good border relations in providing the biggest amount of free trade from two points in North America, shouldn't people be doing a little more homework? If it takes years to figure it out, so what? Thoughtful homework looks a lot better, when all is said & done, then snap decisions.
