As the Gordie Howe International Bridge prepares to open in the coming days, businesses and residents along Huron Church Road are hoping the new crossing will ease decades of heavy transport truck traffic through west Windsor. While exactly how many trucks will shift away from the Ambassador Bridge remains uncertain, the Ontario Trucking Association expects a significant redistribution of commercial traffic as carriers evaluate the benefits of the new route. “We expect a pretty significant level of redistribution of truck traffic, but it’s difficult to predict exactly how many trucks and how quickly that’s going to occur,” said Lak Shoan, the association’s director of policy. “For fleets, it’s largely an economic decision based on a number of different factors, including travel times, toll costs, customer locations, and border processing times. Based on what we’ve heard from a number of our members, the benefits of the Gordie Howe Bridge speak for themselves, and a number of them will be shifting their operations to the new bridge once it’s open.” Shoan said the bridge’s direct highway-to-highway connection, on-site inspection facilities, and ability to accommodate dangerous goods shipments offer efficiencies that could improve cross-border freight movement while creating greater flexibility and redundancy in the supply chain. Still, he expects all three Ontario-Michigan crossings — the Gordie Howe International Bridge, Ambassador Bridge, and Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia — to continue playing important roles in commercial trade. “It’ll be interesting to see how the traffic distribution shapes up over the course of the next several weeks and several months,” he said. For businesses located along Huron Church Road, any reduction in truck traffic would be welcomed. “The trucks on Huron Church have made the road extremely busy, created a lot of noise and made using Huron Church locally more difficult,” said Reid Williams of Williams Food Equipment. “Huron Church is not a safe street given the truck traffic, and over the years we’ve been dealing with construction and congestion. It’s been a long time coming.” Williams said he hopes fewer transport trucks will make the corridor safer and easier for customers to access. “Ultimately, we want our store to be safer and easier to access for our customers. The trucks take up a lot of space. Huron Church has been a difficult road to navigate.” Rob Reeb, general manager of Thunder Road Harley-Davidson, said separating local traffic from commercial vehicles could benefit everyone. “The combination of the local traffic in with them has been problematic for the city for a while, so the separation would probably be a good thing,” Reeb said. The Windsor Essex Chamber of Commerce also welcomed the impending opening of the bridge. In a statement posted to its website, chamber president and CEO Ryan Donally called the project “a defining moment” for the region, saying it strengthens one of North America’s most critical trade corridors and represents a transformational opportunity for Windsor-Essex. Ward 10 Coun. Jim Morrison said many west Windsor residents have long complained about truck noise and air pollution, and hopes the new bridge marks the beginning of a different future for the corridor. “I really hope so,” Morrison said. “This is right in the middle of our city. Huron Church is not supposed to be a highway. This is our street.” Morrison told CTV News that city estimates suggest truck traffic along Huron Church Road could be reduced by 60 to 70 per cent once the Gordie Howe International Bridge opens, although trucking officials say it will take weeks or months to see how traffic patterns ultimately evolve. “The wear and tear on this stretch will lessen considerably,” Morrison continued. “And hopefully that’ll be good for the taxpayers as well.”
