New Fort Erie bridge span plan revived: Report
FORT ERIE, Ont. — American proponents of a new bridge crossing over the Niagara River between Fort Erie, Ont. and Buffalo, N.Y. have kickstarted the plan in an effort to construct the span in the next few years.
According to a report in the Niagara Falls Review, Ron Rienas, general manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, says the decade-old discussion of the Peace Bridge Expansion Project is back on again.
“I’m confident this project will happen,” he told the Review. “Theoretically, we could commence construction by the latter part of 2009.”
bridge in Fort Erie may be back on again
After a series of setbacks it seemed that the second bridge proposal had all but fizzled away over the last year.
However, bridge authority supporters Brian Higgins, a New York congressman, and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown continued to push for a solution, urging officials local, state and federal levels on both sides of the border to work together to get a new bridge built.
Recently, the Buffalo Common Council supported the publication of the expansion project’s draft environmental impact statement. Fort Erie town council will be asked to approve a similar resolution next month, the Review reports.
Meanwhile, the announcement looks to have put a dent in the aspirations of the Ambassador Niagara Bridge Group, which has been proposing a new private $300 million truck bridge along the International Railroad Bridge, about two miles north of the Peace Bridge.
The Bridge Group, which is a subsidiary of the private Ambassador Bridge company that controls the crossing in Windsor-Detroit, is no longer in contention, Rienas claims.
But that’s not how the Ambassador Niagara group sees it. Jim Kane, regional director, told the newspaper that the private project is alive and well.
He says that the Buffalo and Fort Erie Authority don’t have the land or money to build a new bridge, while his company “(has) both.”
The Ambassador Bridge company is in the process of building a twin span next to the current bridge in Windsor-Detroit. While the company sees enough room in Fort Erie for two bridges, it has been actively opposing government plans for a separate bridge downriver in the Windsor-Detroit — the busiest commercial gateway in the world.
— with files from the Niagara Falls Review
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