May 21, 2009

Detroit International Bridge Co. files suit in U.S. court

WASHINGTON

The pitched battle over who gets to build a second bridge span crossing the Detroit River has landed in court, with the private owner of the existing Ambassador Bridge arguing that supporters of a proposed rival span are protecting a predominately white, middle-class neighborhood across the border in Windsor, Ont, while sacrificing a poor neighborhood in southwest Detroit.

The Detroit International Bridge Co. — controlled by trucking magnate Manuel (Matty) Moroun and owner of the 80-year-old Ambassador Bridge, the busiest trade crossing in North America — has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C alleging that federal highway officials violated the law by signing off on an environmental impact study of a rival bridge to be located a little more than a mile downriver.

Dan Stamper, president of the bridge company,said the rival bridge’s supporters — among them federal, state and provincial officials in Canada and the United States — were promoting a bridge designed to siphon traffic away from the Ambassador Bridge and its own proposed second span by publishing erroneous traffic statistics and potentially wasting billions of taxpayer dollars.

A spokesman for Transport Canada in Windsor said that since it wasn’t named in the lawsuit it would be inappropriate to comment.

DCN News Services

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