s
p
ec
i
al
re
p
ort
S
IT
E
SE
L
E
C
TI
ON
36 DC VELOCITY OCTOBER 2016 www.dcvelocity.com
in Detroit’s rundown Delray neighborhood.
The Howe Bridge is expected to handle 26,500 vehicles a
day by 2025, which will ease congestion at the Ambassador
Bridge and provide shippers with more transportation
options. Significantly, the Canadian government will fund
the span’s entire construction, while the U.S. will subsequently contribute revenue collected from tolls.
Getting the Howe Bridge up and running on schedule
may not be easy. Unsurprisingly, Moroun,
Moroun’s opposition stems from the prospect of lost profits
from duty-free gasoline sales at the Ambassador Bridge.
In July, David Duncan, the Canadian official in charge of
the project, told a Canadian paper that the span may not
open by 2020 because about 30 properties on the U.S. side
have yet to be acquired and may prove difficult to buy.
Andrew Doctoroff, special projects adviser to Michigan
Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and the governor’s point man on the
Howe Bridge project, said the span will brighten the out-
look for the city’s logistics services, but even if the project
runs into trouble, it will not alter the course of the broader
TLI initiative. The TLI effort is “not dependent on the
Gordie Howe Bridge,” Doctoroff said in a phone interview.
Bryan of Parsons Brinckerhoff said Detroit and Michigan—
which for the purposes of their logistics outlooks are one
and the same—will succeed if officials understand what
the metro region is capable of, and what it’s not. Detroit’s
strengths lie in supporting distribution from manufac-
turing operations, not retail distribution,
Bryan said. It can be a key player in serving
Michigan, its surrounding markets, and the
NAFTA trades, he added. But it cannot and
will never be a lead actor in nationwide dis-
tribution, he said.
Bryan said the TLI project is critical in
leveraging the natural assets that Detroit and the state of
Michigan could bring to bear on the logistics market. The
initiative would “vault Michigan into a trillion-dollar market with 21st century capabilities, with a marquee site in the
midst of the state’s largest city, and a package of assets that
is rare anywhere in the United States,” he wrote.
The project won’t guarantee that businesses will choose
Michigan for their logistics operations, Bryan said. But it
makes Michigan “fully competitive in the game, and that is
the game changer the state needs,” he wrote.
