DETROIT, (May 25, 2005) — The bilateral committee charged with studying a new proposed bridge span between Windsor, Ont. and Detroit admits that it may have overstated capacity limit forecasts on the Ambassador Bridge.

The Detroit News reports that the Canada-U.S.-Ontario-Michigan Border Partnership will release a new report that states that the Ambassador will likely reach capacity 10 years after what the group originally predicted. The Partnership — consisting of government representatives and business stakeholders on both sides of the border — claimed in 2002 that the border crossing would reach its limit by 2015.

Those projections, says the Detroit News, were primarily based on traffic counts in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the border was jammed with cars and commercial trucks on both sides for miles. Since then, the Partnership acknowledges, traffic has dropped by 25 percent.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, traffic has dropped along the U.S.-Canadian border the last couple years. The number of U.S.-bound trucks fell to 6.8 million in 2003 from 7 million in 2000. In Detroit, incoming trucks dropped to 1.6 million from 1.8 million during that time. Car traffic crossing into that city also fell to 6.3 million from 8.4 million.

The news may put the reigns on a trio of interest groups all vying for consideration to build a new span across the Detroit River, the newspaper suggests. The City of Windsor is adamant that a new bridge we build 3 km southwest of the Ambassador; another group is lobbying for a conversion of railway tunnels into a “commercial truck only” corridor beneath the Detroit River; while the Ambassador operators have applied to build a $400 million second span for the Ambassador Bridge, despite claiming capacity isn’t an issue.

Dan Stamper, president of the Detroit International Bridge Co. told the Detroit News that the new numbers prove that interest groups and proponents of a new bridge have been over hyping the traffic and gridlock problems on both sides of the border. He even suggests that such people are attempting to create a “crisis.’

Earlier this year, a study released by the binational group stated that the two countries may lose up to $28.6 US billion annually by 2030 if an alternate river crossing isn’t added to ease the congestion on either side of the Ambassador Bridge and its sister Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, Ont. and Port Huron, Mich.

About 40 percent of total trade between Canada and the U.S. crosses via the Ambassador or Blue Water bridges. The Windsor-Detroit corridor also handles about 30 percent of Quebec’s exports, according to Industry Canada. Annual commercial traffic between the two crossings has doubled over the last decade, and is expected to triple within the next 20 years.

A separate study conducted by Sam Schwartz Engineering PLLC for the City of Windsor also suggests that the Ambassador will not reach capacity until about 2024. However, that study did claim that the bridge would reach an “unstable” zone by 2017.

More importantly, the study stated that while the bridge is currently only at about 70 percent capacity during normal times, it’s at the point where it can quickly reach above capacity when just one lane is closed or blocked.

Schwartz released his report in Windsor earlier this year. He’s proposing that governments settle for a new bridge crossing and alternative commercial truck route in Windsor — a plan that city’s council unanimously supports.

— with files from the Detroit News