DRIC

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.

Michigan's new governor Rick Snyder (Repub) in a "state of the state" speech to the legislature supported a new toll bridge to Canada, so long as the state is able to avoid taking on new debt. He said: "We must plan now for a new bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor, Ontario."

The Canadians are spending $1.6 billion dollars of their taxpayer money on a beautiful Windsor Essex Parkway (WEP) to serve an international bridge that won't be built - the DRIC bridge or fourth crossing Michigan-Ontario. The recent American elections have brought to power a Republican governor, Rick Snyder, pledged to reduce waste and contain government spending, who has declared he favors the DRIC Bridge so long as it doesn't put taxpayers on the hook.

DRICkery, trickery! Legislators in Michigan have unearthed emails and documents suggesting that Michigan state officials have engaged in trickery in their attempts to advance the controversial DRIC (Detroit River International Crossing) a proposed third truck-route crossing between western Ontario and eastern Michigan.

Enabling legislation for the proposed third Michigan-Ontario bridge known as the DRIC won't be voted on this year according to the Senate majority leader, (Repub) Mike Bishop. Republicans are wary of arrangements that could put the state of Michigan and its taxpayers on the hook for losses on the toll bridge in the future. Potential concessionaires have said the bridge is not financially viable with tolls alone, which means it will need subsidies.

Michigan DOT and supporters of a third Windsor Detroit international crossing known as the DRIC bridge continue to be stymied in their efforts to get approval from the state legislature. There are a number of reasons for this but one might be legal and constitutional problems. Robert A.

Dear TOLLROADSnews Editor,

In the past few months many TOLLROADSnews articles have mentioned the low passenger traffic on the Ambassador bridge. Have you ever actually crossed this bridge recently? 

The approach on the US side is extremely complex and poorly signed. Traveling up the ramp to the bridge proper, one is confronted by a badly barricaded ramp to nowhere, again with no good directions.