Leaders from Michigan and Canadian business and labor, city and the state governments urged Michigan lawmakers Friday to pass legislation to allow the state to enter into a public-private partnership to build and operate the Detroit River International Crossing.


The DRIC project has received all necessary environmental approvals for construction from the Canadian and U.S. governments, but it needs the enactment of so-called P3 (public-private partnership) legislation that would permit the Michigan Department of Transportation to enter into a relationship with Canada and a private sector transportation project developer/financier. The new bridge will be publicly owned. Bridge tolls will be used to repay the private developer/financier.

House Bill 4961, the P3 legislation, is pending in the House Transportation Committee and is expected to be taken up in April.

The leaders argue that the $5.3 billion DRIC project is necessary to provide safe, efficient and secure transportation between the U.S. and Canada across the Detroit River that will meet the long-term needs for the region. The Michigan site chosen for the new bridge is two miles south of the Ambassador Bridge in the Delray area of Detroit.

One quarter of all trade between the two countries passes through the Detroit-Windsor crossing, equating to more than $43.8 billion of trade annually. The Final Environmental Impact Statement shows commercial truck traffic increasing by over 100 percent by 2035.

"The DRIC project is critical to Michigan's future," said Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm. "Construction of the DRIC will provide an immediate injection of jobs to Michigan and will sustain tens of thousands more jobs through trade with Canada once built, all with minimal cost to the tax payer."

The project is expected to create 10,000 construction jobs as well as 25,000 full-time, permanent jobs in Michigan over the next 20 years.

"The Government of Canada is deeply committed to building the new DRIC bridge as soon as possible," said Gary Doer, Canada's ambassador to the U.S. "The new bridge will provide increased border crossing capacity and system redundancy and will ensure that Detroit-Windsor - North America's busiest border crossing - can support the continued growth of Canada-U.S. trade."

The new bridge would connect U.S. I-75 and Canadian Highway 401.

Along with Granholm and Doer, the gathering also included Detroit Mayor Dave Bing; Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis; former Michigan Gov. and Ambassador to Canada James Blanchard; Steve Biegun, Ford vice president of international government affairs; Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan Statewide AFL-CIO; Shorty Gleason, president of the Michigan Building Trades and Construction Council; L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland County executive; and Sandy Baruah, Detroit Regional Chamber.