WINDSOR, Ont. — City Council has hired a lawyer to fight the proposal that would create a designated truck route through Windsor neighborhoods for trucks on their way to the Windsor-Detroit crossing.

The city has retained David Estrin, a Toronto environmental lawyer to fight the federal-provincial tradeway proposal that would create a trucks-only tradeway between Hwy. 401 and the E.C. Row Expressway using an existing Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) right of way.

The city is afraid the tradeway proposal will have a devastating environmental impact on nearby neighborhoods.

Windsor Mayor Mike Hurst says the city won’t take any legal action at least until it hears from residents in the affected South Windsor neighborhoods at a meeting at city hall on Jan. 27. The city is planning on inviting Essex MP Susan Whelan and members of the federal-provincial committee that made the tradeway recommendation, to that meeting.

The tradeway proposal using the CPR right of way to create a designated truck parkway met with public opposition when it was unveiled at a town-hall meeting in early December. Some 350 residents packed the meeting and almost universally said it would pollute nearby neighborhoods and lower property values.