DRIC

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and bridge cheerleaders in the local press often report that opposition to a new government sponsored toll bridge between Detroit and Windsor Canada lies with a diehard minority of state legislators 'bought' by their local villain Manuel 'Matty' Moroun, 84-year old head of the family that owns the rival Ambassador 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.

Supporters of a new Detroit Windsor Bridge (known by the acronyms DRIC or NITC) don't have support in the state legislature to pass the enabling legislation. This was the conclusion local reporters drew from remarks made and informal discussions with legislators on a tour of the bridge site Monday.

In popular myth the Mediterraneans and the Latins are supposedly the more excitable of those who make up the American populace. But the mythmakers obviously never encountered the people of the Detroit River, and especially their scribes. For sheer sustained impassioned hysteria there's nothing that comes close to those Detroiters when worshipping their God bridge DRIC (Drick), recently renamed NITC (Nitsy.)

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.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is sponsoring a bill to establish a New International Trade Crossing (NITC) Authority to form a partnership with the Canadians and allow the financing of a new Detroit River toll bridge to Canada downriver of the Ambassador. The bill does not give the new state authority a name but we'll call it the NITCA ('nitka') using the Governor's office naming of the project NITC.

The Ambassador Bridge company's Matthew Moroun got publicity this week at a news conference in the Michigan capital of Lansing offering to let the state use bridge "toll credits" to bring in $1 billion and $1.16 billion in federal highway grants.

The new Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (Republican) has transformed himself in his short few weeks in office from a bridge skeptic to a bridge booster - for the new public-private toll bridge downstream of the Ambassador Bridge. The Governor's press office has taken to putting out statements of support for the new bridge by outside groups and keying them to Snyder's new advocacy line.

Up there on the cold Canadian border they've decided the bridge name DRIC is rather drack.  So they're on a  quest for a catchier name for the $5+ billion new toll bridge they want to build Detroit to Windsor.

Detroit News reporter Jeff Wattrick suggests the DRIC be renamed the Gordie Howe Bridge.