A Bridge Too Far?

Gordie Howe International Bridge Concept Photo

First proposed in the early 2000s, the Gordie Howe International Bridge project was approved and initiated by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in June 2012, when he and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed the cross-border agreement.

Harper announced the bridge’s name in May 2015.

The Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority chose architecture firm Kasian as Compliance Architect on the project, the largest public-private partnership of its kind in Canada at the time. This included planning and designing the Canadian Port of Entry, guiding the overall aesthetic vision, and delivering architecture, interiors, and signage through to completion.

Fast forward to today, the $6.4 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge is finally open.

It only took 25 years of planning, eight years of construction, a global pandemic, three Canadian Prime Ministers, and a last-minute geopolitical shakedown to get it done.

The bridge connects Windsor to Detroit.

It is the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America.

It is supposed to be the new artery for the North American auto industry.

There is just one problem.

Trucks are not using it yet.

Ambassador Monopoly

If you drove down Huron Church Road in Windsor this week, you saw the same crappy thing you might have seen the week before. And what you might have seen every week for years: an old-school truck-filled traffic jam.

Thousands of long- and short-haulers are still lining up for the Ambassador Bridge.

Gordie is just sitting there, mostly unused, waiting for a flood of commercial traffic.

And folk are kinda wondering why.

Take Stellantis, for example; their FCA Transport drivers have been explicitly ordered by their union not to use the new Gordie Howe Bridge.

The Ambassador Bridge knew Gordie was coming.

They secured contracts with major carriers, locking them into bulk toll agreements in advance.

FCA Transport currently pays a flat rate of $160,000 USD per month to the Ambassador Bridge, regardless of how many crossings they make. Before this deal, they were paying over $400,000 per month.

That is a $2.9 million annual savings.

The contract requires FCA Transport to give Ambassador 60 days’ notice to terminate.

Stellantis cannot just walk away.

Neither can the other major carriers.

25 Years Is A Lot Of Years

The bridge was originally supposed to open in November 2024.

COVID-19 got in the way.

The cross-border project faced differing pandemic restrictions in the US and Canada, material shortages, and workforce disruptions that pushed the timeline back 10 months and added around $700 million to the construction cost.

But even after construction was physically complete, the bridge sat unused.

An engineering firm had to run approximately 3,300 individual systems tests at both ports of entry before a single vehicle could cross.

HVAC systems.

X-ray imaging facilities.

Alarm sequences.

Customs technology.

Some tests were weather-dependent.

As late as April 2026, the US port was 80% complete with its testing.

Then The Donald got involved.

The orange man in the white house delayed Gordie’s opening by another two months.

The Shakedown

Canada wanted the bridge.

The Michiganders agreed to the bridge.

So, Canada, being polite and all, covered the entire $6.4 billion project cost by itself.

The original deal was simple.

Canada would collect all the tolls until the cost of building the bridge was paid off.

Politics got in the way.

The Donald threatened to block the opening.

And he did block the opening.

He demanded the US own “at least one half” of the bridge.

This happened right after the US Commerce Secretary met with Matthew Moroun, the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge.

Canada blinked.

To get the bridge open, Canada agreed to split 50% of the net toll revenues with a US-controlled regional economic development fund for the first 15 years.

Canada built it, paid for it, and now has to share the revenue.

Trump-o-nomics in action! #grift

Future Trade War Casualty?

Even when the contracts expire, and the trucks start truckin’, the bridge faces another massive hurdle: the escalating US-Canada trade war.

Gordie was built to handle 44.5% of commercial traffic on a roadway that moves $1 billion in trade daily.

The Ambassador Bridge alone handles $118 billion USD in annual trade, more than a quarter of all truck-borne shipments between Canada and the US.

The new bridge is projected to save the auto industry 850,000 hours in wait times annually.

Gordie also has a real competitive advantage.

Commercial trucks pay $9.60 per axle at the Gordie Howe Bridge versus roughly $21 per axle at the Ambassador Bridge.

On a standard five-axle tractor-trailer, that is a difference of around $57 per crossing.

But the Department of Homeland Security projects the trade war could cut annual traffic on the Gordie Howe by up to 500,000 vehicles from original projections.

In 2025, the US exported fewer goods to Canada than the year before, and imported fewer as well.

So even if it is a smoother, cheaper, less-monopolistic trip across the border, we’re gonna have to want to ship stuff for Gordie to see the amount of traffic it was planned to handle.

A bridge built for peak free-trade is opening right as free-trade is no longer free.