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Roads: Ambassador & Gordie Howe Bridges

Depending on the time of day and the day of the week, I rarely use the tunnel to the downtown or going north or west.

Once this bridge is in place, will be using it more than the Ambassador bridge, especially to the south on I-75. Even going north will be faster than the Ambassador bridge. That may change depending how the new Ambassador bridge is layout.

I use 402 going west and rarely to Detroit unless it quicker to do so on the area I am going to.
 
drum118 said:
Iuse 402 going west and rarely to Detroit unless it quicker to do so on the area I am going to.
Click to expand...
Before the improvements to the Detroit side of the Ambassador bridge, I once crossed at Sarnia Bluewater heading to the Detroit airport because I was so scared of making a wrong turn coming off the Ambassador bridge. Before the improvements, one had to make several turns on side streets to get onto 75 freeway, and one wrong turn would put you into a part of town you just didn't want to be in!
 
The last time I crossed the Ambassador, we somehow ended up in downtown Detroit instead of on the highway headed west. It wa the middle of the day on a Friday, but still not where we wanted to be going.
 
The overpass that will extend the 401 over the Ojibway Parkway to the Canadian Port of Entry.

8976d58cf730ee193b6c8a4572f9a4db.JPG


Source: https://www.gordiehoweinternationalbridge.com/en/gallery?type=1#photos
 
That thing is so ridiculously over built.. There is 0 need for that to be a single span. Why not a small span over Ojibway Parkway, another small span over the railway, and embankments everywhere else?
 
innsertnamehere said:
That thing is so ridiculously over built.. There is 0 need for that to be a single span. Why not a small span over Ojibway Parkway, another small span over the railway, and embankments everywhere else?
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Planning for the future. Surprised myself how long that bridge is.

Provision for widening the existing Ojibway Parkway 4 lanes to 6 lanes as well a future road beside the RR tracks on both sides of it.
 
innsertnamehere said:
That thing is so ridiculously over built.. There is 0 need for that to be a single span. Why not a small span over Ojibway Parkway, another small span over the railway, and embankments everywhere else?
Click to expand...
It's probably because of the heavy freight traffic that will likely use the bridge. Might reduce maintenance costs by reducing the number of pins and other connections long term. Still a mystery to me though.
 
innsertnamehere said:
That thing is so ridiculously over built.. There is 0 need for that to be a single span. Why not a small span over Ojibway Parkway, another small span over the railway, and embankments everywhere else?
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  • There will be a road going under the west span where the yellow crane is.
  • The west pier (where the blue bucket truck is) is roughly on the property line.
  • The soil is very compressible and there were big concerns that any settlement leading to dipping of the rail track would lead to litigation. Thus, no embankments (which add weight and cause settlement) where allowed anywhere near the railway right-of-way.
  • There are a tonne of underground gas and electric line under the Ojibway span, and a pier in the median of Ojibway was not allowed - which forced it to be that long.
 
innsertnamehere said:
That thing is so ridiculously over built.. There is 0 need for that to be a single span. Why not a small span over Ojibway Parkway, another small span over the railway, and embankments everywhere else?
Click to expand...

Highway infrastructure here in Windsor needs to be overbuilt. We have tons of trucks passing through on the 401 every day. The Herb Gray Parkway (401 extension to the new bridge) infrastructure was super overbuilt so it would last a while with minimal need for repairs, as any significant repairs would involve slowing the bridge traffic down. They're also building newer infrastructure here in consideration to potential growth in both population and commerce.

We are seeing this with our current vein towards the Ambassador Bridge, Huron Church. This road was not designed for the amount of use it is getting and is in horrible condition because of the sheer amount of truck traffic, the city of Windsor finally decided to repair it recently, but fixing the road has caused some serious traffic backups along Huron Church and affects bridge traffic pretty negatively.

Building this infrastructutre more robust means the bridge traffic can keep flowing faster for longer.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
Construction is in the very early stages right now from my understanding - it'll ramp up this summer.
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Just went down there last night, couldn't see much in terms of new construction for the bridge, but I'm just going to say that if you're traveling in the late evening or early morning, that going though Sarnia is a far better experience. There's just too much truck traffic through Windsor.
 
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