Detroit’s Gordie Howe International Bridge is set to change the way people cross the Detroit River. For the first time in decades, residents will be able to walk or bike, in addition to driving, into Canada.
Expected to open in early 2026, the bridge is designed to ease congestion at existing crossings. Once it is built, it will become the only bridge from Michigan to Canada that allows for foot and bike traffic, joining just a few other US-Canadian crossings with pedestrian lanes.
“People didn’t want us to lose a unique opportunity to design a new international crossing without considering the incorporation of a multiuse path for pedestrians and cyclists,” said Heather Grondin, chief relations officer for the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
Construction began in 2018 and as of Nov. 13, it is 98% completed. Though an official opening date hasn’t been announced, officials expect the bridge will open early 2026.
The Gordie Howe International Bridge will have six lanes, three in each direction, for vehicular traffic. The added bridge is expected to alleviate slowdowns on the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and the Ambassador Bridge, which has four lanes for traffic.
“This bridge, along with the adjacent infrastructure, will connect directly from Interstate 75 to the Ontario highway system, known as Highway 401, without trucks or cars having to stop at traffic lights along the way,” Grondin said.
In the case of backups, Grondin noted that cars will be contained within the port of entry to avoid traffic congestion on I-75 and trucks will also be required to turn their engine off during inspection to reduce noise and air pollution.
“We’ve done a lot of work to ensure that … people will have a destination when they go across the multiuse path and will be able to connect to much broader trail networks,” she said.
Creating another port of entry to and from our northern neighbor has been in the works for over 20 years.
Several studies were conducted in the early 2000s to look more closely at cross-border travel patterns amid concerns that infrastructure at the time would not support an anticipated rise in traffic. In 2012, then-Gov. Rick Snyder and Canada’s prime minister announced an agreement on a publicly owned Windsor-Detroit bridge crossing.
“The Ambassador Bridge is basically privately owned and controlled by one family, and I think there was nervousness around that,” said Jeff Rightmer, professor of supply chain management at Wayne State University. “The new bridge alleviates some of that monopoly that the Moroun family had.”
The roughly $4.4 billion project was funded by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, the governing body that oversees the business affairs of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, and financed in Canadian dollars, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Since the Canadian government paid for the bridge, it will recoup the toll revenue and receive ongoing capital and availability payments to operate, maintain and rehabilitate the project for the next 36 years.
“I think it made it much more attractive to the U.S., specifically Michigan, (for Canada) to take on a lot of that debt,” Rightmer said. “You can tell that Canada really wanted to get it done.”
A new way across
The additional bridge will provide drivers with more options on the road.
“The ability to have more than the Ambassador Bridge, the tunnel and the Blue Water Bridge up in Port Huron is just huge for the region,” Rightmer said. “The ability to move more stuff back and forth is only going to benefit Michigan and Canada.”
The Gordie Howe Bridge will be particularly attractive to tourists as it will have bike and pedestrian lanes. Only the Peace Bridge and Rainbow Bridge over the Niagara River, and Thousand Islands Bridge over the St. Lawrence River allow foot traffic.
The Ambassador Bridge originally had an eight-foot-wide sidewalk for pedestrians. But it was closed after the 9/11 attacks amid security concerns.
“With all of the parks and the riverfront redevelopment … it gives the average Detroiter a lot more access to Canada and makes it a lot easier to get there,” he said.
Pedestrians and cyclists will enter through a separate port but are still required to show proper identification, either a passport or an enhanced license.
You can walk, but run won’t move
Even with a new bridge rising over the river, Detroit’s oldest international marathon plans to stay its course.
Participants in the Detroit Free Press International Marathon cross the Ambassador Bridge to Canada and return through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.
Despite the Gordie Howe Bridge being wider and a bit shorter, Aaron Velthoven, the race’s executive producer, said there are no plans to change the course of the race in the near future.
“The (Gordie Howe) Bridge is much further away from where we traditionally start and finish,” he said. “To even entertain something like that, we would have to dramatically change where we start and finish.”
Both bridges are roughly 150 feet above the Detroit River at its highest point.
“The Ambassador Bridge is … a steep incline but the nice thing is, from our race perspective, the bridge is early in the course.”
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This story was originally published by Bridge Detroit and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
