Riverside Park deal inches forward Morouns' bridge plan

The Riverside Park land swap announced Wednesday by Mayor Mike Duggan advances the Moroun family's hopes to build a new bridge alongside their Ambassador Bridge a step or two -- but those are small steps on a long road.

Before the Morouns can build their second span alongside the Ambassador Bridge they would need to win at the very least federal approval from the U.S. government — likely a years-long process — and permission from both the Canadian federal government as well as approval from the City of Windsor, neither of which is likely.

Canadian authorities have battled the Ambassador Bridge owners for years over a variety of issues, most importantly over Canada's plans to build a new rival bridge two miles downstream from the Ambassador, a plan now in the planning and early engineering stages. That publicly owned span, known as either the New International Trade Crossing (NITC) or Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC), is scheduled to be completed by 2020.

Longtime observers on both sides of the border see little if any likelihood that Canadians will relent on their opposition to a second Moroun span. Among the reasons: Windsor leaders have complained for years about truck traffic in Windsor from the Morouns' existing bridge, and Canadian authorities say any new bridge ought to be a public entity, not privately owned.

Despite such obstacles, the land swap announced Wednesday would clear one hurdle for the Morouns in the event all the other approvals ever fall into place. The three acres of Riverside Park land that Detroit would transfer to the Morouns would give the family enough land to build the approaches to its hoped-for second span.

In addition, the family also won the backing of Duggan for any second span. Duggan enthusiastically endorsed the building of both the NITC/DRIC bridge project and the Morouns' second bridge.

"One of the conflicts that to me has always been a false conflict has been between the expansion of the Ambassador Bridge and the building of the NITC bridge," Duggan told a press conference at Riverside Park with Matthew Moroun, son of bridge owner Manuel (Matty) Moroun, standing nearby. "I've never believed they were in conflict. I am a supporter of both bridges and I always have been."

Duggan said he wants to see the NITC/DRIC built as soon as possible. Then he expressed the same support for the Ambassador Bridge second span.

"The idea of a second span I think would strengthen Detroit's position as an international trade crossing and as a logistics center and it would be a very positive thing," Duggan said. He acknowledged that a second Ambassador span needs multiple approvals on both sides of the border, but added, "It would put people to work and help us long term."

Moroun told the news conference that getting the three-acre strip of land plus Duggan's support will help a good deal.

"You know how badly my family and our business wants to build that bridge," he said. "There's multilevels of government and plenty of both bureaucratic and political approvals necessary. But this does take us a long way."

The conflict exists because the Morouns' bridge company now collects tens of millions of dollars a year in toll revenue from their Ambassador Bridge, the leading trade corridor between the U.S. and Canada. A new, more modern NITC/DRIC bridge would almost certainly siphon off a big percentage of that traffic and toll revenue.

The Morouns have attempted to stop the rival bridge project for years both through lawsuits in multiple courts in both the U.S. and Canada and with generous campaign cash to lawmakers who have been in a position to stymie the government bridge. Indeed, the reason that Canada has agreed to pay all the upfront costs of the new bridge even though Michigan will be a half owner of the span is seen largely as a result of the Morouns' campaign donations influencing Michigan legislators who refused to have the state pay its share.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.