WINDSOR, Ont. — The overwhelmed border gateway in Windsor will soon get the most expensive and innovative highway ever built in Ontario.

Federal and provincial officials announced this morning final plans to build a new six-lane highway access link from Highway 401 to the new border crossing being proposed in the Ojibway Parkway industrial area — about 3 km southwest of the Ambassador Bridge.

The $1.6 billion below-grade feeder route includes 11 short tunnels that will cover about two kilometers of the truck-jammed Huron Church-Talbot Road corridor, explained officials from the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study team — the binational government agency appointed to cure Windsor and Detroit of longstanding border woes.

More details are expected in the coming weeks, when a final environmental assessment is completed.

“It is unprecedented in its community enhancement features for any highway, anywhere in this province and will be designed using Ontario’s high safety standards and practices,” the province said in a press release.

The final design is a little closer to the GreenLink proposal that was being championed by Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis and much of City Council. Those designs — drawn up by New York traffic guru Sam Schwartz and engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff — called for hundreds of acres of accompanying green space and about 60 percent of the route to be tunneled as to better connect communities while protecting them from noise and vehicle emissions.

In a recent interview, Schwartz said his plan was the logical solution for enhancing neighborhoods that have for years “been separated by walls of queuing trucks and traffic.” At the same time, trucks would get direct, unfettered access to the U.S. border, which is about 11 km away from Highway 401.

GreenLink (above) offered about 60% of covered tunnel on
the route, while DRIC hiked its tunnel total slightly from 25%.

Previous drafts of DRIC’s Windsor-Essex Parkway included only 1.5 km (25 percent) of covered tunnel, but the team upped it to 1.9 km with about 240 acres of parkland and walking trails lining the corridor.

Clearly, the much-hyped GreenLink proposal influenced DRIC’s final decision, but it was always unlikely the team of bureaucrats would totally adopt the city’s preferred alternative.

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and Windsor Liberal MPP Sandra Pupatello weren’t shy about promoting DRIC’s cheaper solution in recent months. And just last week, DRIC got a rise out of City Council when it took aim at GreenLink, suggesting the project would cost about a billion more than the city’s original $1.6 billion estimate and that the width of the roadway shoulders and storm drainage were areas of concern.

Predictably, Mayor Francis wasn’t enthused with DRIC’s version. He told local media this morning that the final blueprint isn’t close enough to the more environmentally-sound GreenLink proposal.

Big manufacturers that depend on fast, efficient, just-in-time truck crossings were otherwise pleased by today’s announcement.

“This crossing is critical to the entire region, especially for major manufacturers such as Chrysler, whose operations are dependent upon a reliable and efficient infrastructure for trade between Canada and the U.S.,” Chrysler Canada CEO Reid Bigland, said in a press release.

Added Len Crispino, president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce: “Today’s announcement provides one more critical step towards meeting the timelines required to get the new international crossing operational in 2013, a deadline we cannot afford to miss.”

Later this summer, DRIC will formally announce the exact location for a new international bridge and plaza. The structure, which will be built and managed through a public-private arrangement, will likely go in one of three spots off of Ojibway Parkway.