Ambassador Bridge owners sue FHWA to suppress safety report

Detroit International Bridge Company (DIBC) owners of the Ambassador Bridge, Detroit-Windsor have filed suit to prevent Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) from releasing an annual safety and condition report.  They claim in the suit filed in US District Court in Detroit that release of the report would:

-  jeopardize national security

- breach a 2004 Gateway Agreement to which the FHWA was a party

- violate the national Critical Infrastructures Protection Act passed in the wake of the attacks of 9/11/2001

FHWA received a freedom of information act request for the report, according to one local account, from the office of US Congressman John Dingell (Dem Detroit.)

The bridge company which built the toll suspension bridge in the 1920s and owns it in perpetuity under a city charter is also waging a legal and political battle to prevent construction of a competing toll bridge a couple of miles (3km) downstream.

The bridge company is also accused of squatting on city land by the riverfront to provide space for a second or replacement span, approaches of which have been built, right alongside the 1920s span. On the US side this would be easily linked to I-75 but on the Canadian side it is linked only to local streets in Windsor.

The Ambassador Bridge is the major trucking route between Canada and the US, although traffic has declined by a third in the past few years along with drastic loss of viability of automobile companies manufacturing nearby in Ontario and Michigan.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-09-28