bridge

A proposed new Canada-Michigan sponsored toll bridge downriver of the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit continues to lack support in the state legislature. Enabling legislation was rejected today by a key senate committee in which bridge promoters had invested great hopes.

The Conway report declaring a new Detroit River or DRIC bridge financially non-viable has a bunch of questionable assumptions, according to a thoughtful analyst in Detroit (Analyst) who follows this project closely, but can't be identified.

Polling by political consultant Dick Morris shows that public opinion prefers private to government financing of a toll bridge between Detroit Michigan and Windsor Ontario. A sample of 500 Michigan residents got 51.8% support for a privately financed second span to the Ambassador Bridge to 27.6% preferring a "government owned bridge" with 20.6% saying don't know or declining to answer.

Dec 2007 we wrote a speculative article about a picture of an historic "Tariff of Toll Rates" sign that was identified only in the Library of Congress collection as located at the Connecticut River between Vermont and New Hampshire. It was a faded overexposed black and white photograph.

We fiddled with it Photoshop and got it barely legible.

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3305

Kansas Turnpike Authority has embarked on its largest rebuild project, letting a contract for new bridges over the Kansas River in Lawrence and reconstruction of interchanges and a toll plaza on one side. Project cost is around $140m of which construction is $113m. The existing steel truss bridges are 52 years old - they go back to the original construction of the Turnpike - and are judged in need of replacement.