Windsor-Detroit border sees travel increase as land border reopens to double-vaccinated Americans

Local businesses reap benefits of border reopening Some downtown Windsor businesses are already seeing the impact since the border reopened Monday. CTV Windsor’s Angelo Aversa with details.

Windsor, Ont. — The Windsor-Detroit border saw an influx of travellers Monday as Canada welcomed double-vaccinated United States residents for the first time since last March.

Officials at the tunnel say there were 1,000 additional vehicles through on the first day of the border reopening — an 84 per cent increase to pandemic traffic.

Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens was pleased with the increased traffic at the tunnel from both a business and personal perspective.

“Any revenue we can generate in the tunnel is very, very important. It’s a very expensive operation to run, and all of the costs are basically fixed,” Dilkens said. “So whether you have no cars going through or 10,000 cars going through, by and large your expenses are the same. So getting more traffic is important from a business perspective on the tunnel, but when you distill it down, that’s 1,000 people who have been able to reunify with their family that they haven’t seen for 17 months, and I imagine that number’s going to start ticking up as we get closer to this weekend.”

As for the Ambassador Bridge Company, Randy Spader manager of operations, says the bridge had about a 17 per cent uptick in passenger vehicles crossing from Detroit into Windsor.

He thinks the increase was from the first group of citizens allowed to cross who wanted to see loved ones, friends or to check on property.

Spader says by Tuesday, interest in crossing seemed to level off.

Should non-essential travel restrictions not be reinstated, Spader thinks there will be a gradual incline in travel with a sharper rise on the weekends.