I was looking at Maps and I noticed there are no bridges connecting Ontario and Michigan between the I-94/69 bridge and Detroit. The river looks plenty narrow enough to have more connections. Is it simply a matter of no real need, or is it done as a border control measure to consolidate crossings to a few points?
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on July 21, 2015, 07:15:39 PM
I was looking at Maps and I noticed there are no bridges connecting Ontario and Michigan between the I-94/69 bridge and Detroit. The river looks plenty narrow enough to have more connections. Is it simply a matter of no real need, or is it done as a border control measure to consolidate crossings to a few points?
Need. There's two ferries crossing the river there.
Quote from: Brandon on July 21, 2015, 07:33:46 PM
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on July 21, 2015, 07:15:39 PM
I was looking at Maps and I noticed there are no bridges connecting Ontario and Michigan between the I-94/69 bridge and Detroit. The river looks plenty narrow enough to have more connections. Is it simply a matter of no real need, or is it done as a border control measure to consolidate crossings to a few points?
Need. There's two ferries crossing the river there.
If there was quite a bit of traffic that would cross at that location, there would have to be a better road on the Ontario side, not a bunch of county highways (and ON 40). So, it is need. I doubt a bridge will ever be built there.
The largest town along the river in America has a population of 9000. If you wanted to build a new bridge you would want to make some decent connecting roads to major roads. There just isn't much traffic need for it.
There's no real need and it would be very expensive to do so. There is a ton of shipping traffic through there so any bridges would have to be built very high with customs and toll plazas on both ends. It's taken decades just to get another bridge built in the Detroit area, and it's still a ways off.
Because Lake St. Clair is in the way....?
I think the OP means the Saint Clair River.
The reasons have been well covered here. Any other bridge between the two countries would effectively connect nothing to nothing. Counting the Detroit-Windsor tunnel and the DRIC, there will be 4 crossings separated by about 70 miles, 3 of them within 3 miles of each other.