Gordie Howe International Bridge proceeding
with anchor towers and pedestrian bridges
By John Devine
Special to Ontario Construction Report
The design has been revealed for
five pedestrian bridges that will be
part of the Michigan Interchange
component of the new Gordie Howe
International Bridge connecting
Windsor and Detroit.
According to the design team, the
pedestrian bridges are both func-
tional and visually pleasing, and fea-
ture a curved steel arch.
“The design of the pedestrian
bridges is a result of meaningful con-
sultation with the community and
other stakeholders. The voices of
community members have helped
shape the project since early plan-
ning days and we will continue to en-
gage and consult as the project
progresses through construction and
into the operations phase,” said
Bryce Phillips, CEO, Windsor-Detroit
Bridge Authority.
The pedestrian bridges will be
compliant with the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) standards, and
will include lighting features. They
will be located over Interstate 75 (I-
75) in Detroit at Solvay Street, Beard
Street, Waterman Street, Junction
Street and Lansing Street. Bridging
North America (BNA) will undertake
construction of these pedestrian
bridges between 2020 and 2024,
when the bridge spanning the Detroit
River is expected be open.
It is being built at a cost of about
$5.7 billion, and is being financed
through a public-private partnership.
Construction challenges are daunt-
ing, and include the building of two
A-frame bridge towers to suspend
the cable-stayed structure, one on
the Canadian side and the other on
the American side, where it will soar
750 feet about Detroit’s skyline.
The massive towers will anchor
the bridge stretching 2,799 feet, the
longest main span in North America.
PAGE 4 – FEBRUARY 2020 – The Ontario Construction Report
Preparing the ground for the bridge
project is nearly complete, with the
full scope of the effort detailed in four
separate projects:
• The bridge itself
• The entry point to the bridge in
Canada • The entry point in the United
States • The Michigan interchange that
links the bridge to Interstate 75
and delivers six lanes of commer-
cial traffic to businesses on both
sides of the border.
• The work on the Windsor side in-
cludes customs plazas at the port
of entry.
“The alignment of the bridge could
not be changed,” says Jiri Filipovic,
vice president of alternative delivery
at AECOM Transportation and a
member of the BNA design team. “It
was mostly because of the former
salt mining. The underground is just
fraught with cavities, and significant
investigations have been done to
make sure that the alignment and any
of the foundations don’t hit the min-
ing cavities. So that’s why it was
pretty mandatory for everyone to stay
on the alignment as we had it.”
The design of the bridge involves a
continuous curve, anchored at each
end by the towers that suspend the
bridge deck with cables across the
river. The side spans are each 1,049
feet long, and supported by 27 back-
stay cables and three pairs of ancil-
lary piers that transfer loads directly
to the ground. Other features in-
clude: The mostly serpentine approaches
on each side include two sharp hori-
zontal curves, designed that way be-
cause of the difficult ground.
Remediation work has been exten-
sive. The land is being prepared for
50,000 square feet of buildings, in ad-
dition to the bridge.
“We had to do a lot of stability
work near the seawall (on the Ameri-
can side) because (drilling subcon-
tractor) Malcolm Drilling’s equipment
is so heavy,” says Doug Thornton,
general superintendent for the Ameri-
can point of entry. “This work is exist-
ing seawall, so we’ve got to drill
some shafts in between all the
tiebacks and transfer the load to the
backside of the anchor cap wall.
Then we can clear out all these exist-
ing obstructions and be able to drill
our shafts for the actual tower. So all
that work is going on.”
The project is expected to meet its
2024 completion date. Majority Cana-
dian-owned BNA is the private-sector
partner designing, building, financing,
operating and maintaining the bridge.
The company and its partners have
significant experience with infrastruc-
ture projects, including the Rt. Hon.
Herb Gray Parkway in Windsor, the
New Champlain Bridge Corridor in
Montreal, Autoroute 30 in Montreal,
the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in
Toronto, Réseau Express Métropoli-
tain (REM) in Montreal, the Auto-
mated People Mover at LAX Airport,
the San Francisco-Oakland Bay
Bridge, and many other projects.
The design is being conducted by
two separate teams to resolve differ-
ent building standards, but features
will be consistent.
“It had to be contemporary, mini-
malist and welcoming,” said Filipovic.
“We wanted to have an openness by
the way we used the space. Because
of these common themes, both
teams needed to work very closely
together, and we did. On top of that,
to address the various requirements
for security, we brought in specialty
sub-consultants to supplement
AECOM and the other design team
members to address the different se-
curity requirements (of the Canadian
and American border security agen-
cies).”