Completed Comment Period on DRIC Draft Environmental Assessment Report

News Release

Windsor — December 12, 2008 marked the completion of the comment period on the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study team’s draft Environmental Assessment Report (EA Report).

Initiated in 2005 by the Canada-U.S.-Ontario-Michigan Border Transportation Partnership for the safe and efficient movement of people and goods across the Windsor-Detroit border, the DRIC study involved more than 300 meetings with stakeholders and citizens, including school, community and advisory groups and seven rounds of public information open houses. Stakeholder and community participation at various milestones in the study supported a thorough and systematic approach to decision making.

“The DRIC study team would like to thank the people, businesses and municipalities of Windsor, LaSalle and Tecumseh, and Essex County, for valuable input that helped shape the technically and environmentally preferred alternative,” said Dave Wake, the DRIC study team lead in Canada.

That input helped to develop the plan for an access road leading to the new border crossing from the original concept of an at-grade freeway into a green and community-friendly transportation corridor. It also helped develop key design features of The Windsor-Essex Parkway, including 11 tunnels to provide new community connections across the transportation corridor, 300 acres of green space, 20 kilometres of trails, and service roads to meet local travel needs.

Extensive consultation combined with the detailed technical studies and analysis, helped identify The Windsor-Essex Parkway (WEP) as the best solution to meet community needs and study goals for the access road to a new Canadian inspection plaza and international bridge.

The WEP is designed to meet the communities’ long-expressed goals to improve the quality of life, get trucks off local streets and improve traffic flow to the border. Trucks and travellers would have freeway-to-freeway access across the Detroit River.

The DRIC studies in Canada and the United States were coordinated to allow for the development of an end-to-end border transportation system. The final EA Report for the Canadian side will be submitted to the Ontario Minister of the Environment by the end of December 2008

This news release may be made available in alternative formats for persons with visual disabilities.

Media Contacts

Pat Smith
Windsor Border Initiatives Implementation Group
Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Windsor
519-973-7359

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