US land sale completed for US-Canada Gordie Howe Bridge

Detroit has reached an agreement with the state to sell land, assets and some streets as part of a second bridge between Windsor and Detroit.

A report by the Detroit News said that the $US48 million will go towards neighbourhood programmes, job training and health monitoring.

Of this, around $26 million will go to relocating residents in Detroit’s Delray district whose properties will be affected by construction and positioning of the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

The bridge will provide a second road link between the Canadian city of Windsor in the province of Ontario and Detroit, in the US state of Michigan. The vast majority of commercial trucking between the US and Canada uses the only city-to-city crossing, the aging Ambassador Bridge owned by the American Manuel “Matty” Moroun.

Construction of the new $2.1 billion bridge should start in 2018 for completion in 2020. Canada is supplying Michigan’s $550 million share of the bridge, which will be repaid through tolls.

Detroit News said that the deal calls for the city to sell the 2630 Michigan Department of Transportation 36 parcels of land, underground assets and about 8km of streets in the bridge’s footprint.

Canada has already completed a major access road, the Herb Gray Parkway, on the Canadian side.

The first phase of early works has focused on fill placement, construction of a perimeter access road and minor utility relocations on the Canadian side of the river, noted the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, a not-for-profit Canadian government corporation. The WDBA is managing the procurement for design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the bridge through a public-private partnership for which the WDBA is also responsible for project oversight.