Front Desk
After 25 years of planning, seven years of construction and months of delays, the first trucks are finally set to roll over the Gordie Howe bridge on Monday.
In tow will be some of the billions of dollars worth of goods that pass through the Windsor-Detroit corridor, which the bridge will help get to their destinations faster — saving time and money.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity here in dollar terms, but also in terms of what our future looks like, just embodied in that one bridge,” said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University who studies international trade.
But just how much time and money are we talking about?
Here’s what you need to know.
850,000 hours per year saved
The existing Blue Water Bridge, Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel have supported massive amounts of trade for decades. But they’re near capacity, which Canadian Trucking Alliance CEO Stephen Laskowski says has led to congestion.
He says lines at customs plazas on both sides of the Ambassador Bridge have grown longer over the years. And the route leading to that crossing on the Windsor side also takes drivers through a dozen or so stoplights.
But with three lanes of capacity going in each direction, the Gordie Howe is expected to speed things up significantly.
The new bridge is expected to take 44.5 per cent of the commercial traffic that passes through the Windsor-Detroit corridor, according to a January filing from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security establishing the route as an official port of entry.
The Gordie Howe route also directly connects two major American and Canadian highway networks — the 75-series highways in the U.S. with the 400-series highways in Ontario.
While the new bridge might only shave off a few minutes from each trip, that time adds up. It’s estimated to save truck drivers some 850,000 hours per year in wait times.
Laskowski’s organization estimates the new bridge will save trucking companies between $20,000 and $100,000 a month, depending on the size of their fleet.
Lower tolls on the Gordie Howe compared to the Ambassador Bridge will shave a few bucks off of that cost, according to Laskowski, while less time spent idling in traffic will mean savings on fuel and wages.
$1B in daily trade
Given a third of all trade that happens between the U.S. and Canada passes through this corridor, the bridge could have some serious benefits for the economy writ large.
Canada and the U.S. already ship about $1 billion daily through the Windsor-Detroit corridor, according to an estimate from Invest WindsorEssex, making it the busiest international land border crossing in North America.
“It’s mind-boggling,” said Lander.
As is the case for auto manufacturing, parts often cross the border multiple times before ending up in a finished product that’s sold in either country.
That compounds any time savings from a single border crossing, says Sandy Baruah, CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber of commerce.
Any delays from a slow crossing can hold things up at factories too, says Baruah, so another bridge to keep things moving would prevent delays from having a domino effect.
“In today’s hyper-competitive global market, any efficiency that can be gained is a big deal.”
And if businesses aren’t spending as much to truck products around that could mean they don’t raise prices as quickly, which Lander says could mean “inflation kept under tabs.”
