Federal Government Unveils Long Awaited Final Plan for New Windsor-Detroit Border Crossing

Federal Government Unveils Long Awaited Final Plan for New Windsor-Detroit Border Crossing

OTA Says Long-Awaited Announcement is a Major Step Forward

(Toronto: June 18, 2008) — The president of the Ontario Trucking Association, David Bradley, called today’s announcement by federal Cabinet Ministers Lawrence Cannon and Stockwell Day of the preferred location of the new inspection plazas and bridge crossing between Windsor and Detroit “a major step forward” in what he says has been a “long and at time frustrating political process.” The announcement marks the end of the road for the bi-national Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) process.

"There are still further hurdles to cross before construction can begin,” cautioned Bradley. “The environmental departments on both sides of the border need to give their final approval to the DRIC recommendations, there may be self-interests who will want to try and delay construction through legal action, and the politicians on both sides of the border, from all levels of government, need to get on-board. But reaching this milestone gives us hope that the commencement of construction may not be too far away."

"It’s no secret that Ontario’s trade based economy has been taking a beating lately and this new crossing will do much to provide a renewed sense of confidence in the reliability of supply chains that cross the Canada-US border," he said.

"From the start OTA has said that what is was needed in Windsor was a freeway to freeway connection across the border, additional capacity to relieve the back-ups that plague the Windsor crossing, and redundancy for the existing crossings to ensure that no single event could close the border in this area. This plan meets all of those goals so we are very happy to support the DRIC recommendations. We believe they reflect a reasonable balancing of the local community’s needs, the trade community’s needs, and the economic needs of the region, of Ontario and Michigan and of Canada and the United States.”

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To read more about the plan/view a background with maps, please follow this link: http://www.tc.gc.ca/mediaroom/includes/printable_release.asp?lang=en

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