A Vision for the Future

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel crossing is a large complex consisting of toll and inspection plazas on each side of the border where you pay for your crossing and undergo inspections by Immigration and Customs. The Tunnel is 5,160 feet long (1,573 meters) with a height clearance of 13 feet 2 inches (4 meters). The roadway is 22 feet wide (6.7 meters) and allows for two lanes of traffic in opposite directions. First opened to traffic on November 3, 1930, construction took 26 months and cost $23,000,000. The maximum depth of the roadway beneath the river surface is 75 feet (22.8 meters).

Tunnel Construction History

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is approximately one mile long from portal to portal. The American portal is located a few hundred feet from Downtown Detroit while the Canadian end is located in the heart of Windsor's business district. Promotion of the Tunnel started over 120 years ago.

The Tunnel was the first vehicular subway ever built between two nations. At the time of its construction two other tunnels were in use in the United States — the Holland Tunnel in New York and the George A. Posey Tunnel connecting Oakland and Alameda, California.

As early as 1870, Detroit citizens were greatly debating the relative merits of a bridge and a tunnel between Detroit and Windsor. The railroads favored a bridge while shipping interests felt that a bridge structure would be hazardous to navigation, a prime example of which were the exceedingly high masts of the sailing ships that forged the Detroit River at that time.

Attention then turned to a tunnel project as a means of providing swift transportation across the river. In 1871, ground was broken near the foot of St. Antoine Street for a tunnel under the Detroit River. It was to have a 15-foot bore, surrounded by masonry. A pocket of sulphurous gas ended the project when workers were 135 feet out under the river. The gas made the workers so sick that none of them could be induced to resume work on the following day. The project was abandoned.

Detroit's second tunnel venture took place in 1878, when a tube was proposed to connect Grosse Ile, Michigan with the Canadian mainland. No gas was encountered, yet this undertaking had to be abandoned because certain limestone formations made the cost of excavation prohibitive. In 1874, the Detroit Board of Trade made a determined effort to promote a bridge, despite the opposition of shipping interests. Nothing came of this project.

When the Grand Trunk Railway Tunnel under the St. Clair River at Port Huron opened in 1891, this caused another flurry of activity about additional tunnel construction. This railway tunnel was 6,000 feet in length and at the time was the longest, subaqueous tunnel in the world. Detroit business interests, afraid of a diversion of shipping to Port Huron, made a desperate effort to generate public support for a tunnel in Detroit.

In 1906, construction began on the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel in Detroit and was completed four years later. It had a total length of two and one-half miles and cost $8,500,000. However, the opening of this tunnel did not lessen the agitation for vehicular transportation facilities across the Detroit River, especially after the phenomenal growth of the automobile industry. Bridge and tunnel advocates remained active in support of their respective undertakings, culminating several years later in an announcement that Detroit would have both projects.

In June 1919, Windsor's Mayor Edward Blake Winter requested Ottawa to construct a tunnel as a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I. Winter's argument was that a tunnel between England and France had been proposed as a war memorial, and if England and France could be united by a tunnel, so should Canada and the United States. Despite the opinion of scientific experts that anyone using the tunnel would die of carbon monoxide poisoning, a Windsor Salvation Army Captain, Fred W. Martin, pursued the dream of a Detroit-Windsor tunnel. It was not until 1926, when a prestigious New York architecture firm predicted that a tunnel would not only be feasible but profitable, that Martin found enough backing to get the project underway. A group of Detroit bankers agreed to back the project provided that the New York architects would design the tunnel and guarantee its construction costs.

Construction History

Construction operations began in the summer of 1928, at approximately the same time on both sides of the river. The completion of the tunnel was an engineering feat unparalleled at the time, which combined three different tunneling methods. On each side of the river, a cut and cover method was used on the sections from where the open cut trenches end to the harbor line. Earth was dug away by muckers or sandhogs that used manually operated knives to cut a path for the giant shield wall.

As the shield moved forward, foot by foot, electrically welded steel plates were put in place behind it to form the tunnel tube. Construction of the river section of the tunnel was the most spectacular of the operations, as it involved sinking nine steel tubes into a trench dug across the bottom of the river. The steel shells were built on dry land, welded watertight, sealed and floated into the river. Once they were tugged and anchored into position over the trench, the final interior and exterior concrete was poured, and the tubes were sunk and joined together by divers using a collar of tremie cement. Once the tube was in place, the trench was backfilled with 20 feet of material to hold it in place.

Meanwhile, the crews drove the shield section toward the tube, traveling underground 466 feet on the US side and 986 feet on the Canadian side, changing courses both vertically and horizontally. When contact with the submerged tube was made, there was less than one-inch error in alignment. The Tunnel has one of the most elaborate ventilation systems ever devised, and as a result the air in the tunnel is cleaner than the air at street level.

Ventilation towers are located at each end of the tunnel. Each tower is approximately 100 feet high, on a site 50x90 feet. Each tower, with its equipment, provides ventilation for half of the tunnel. The equipment consists of motor-driven fresh air fans and exhaust fans arranged in successive tiers in different storeys with direct connections to the fresh air ducts in the tunnel. Each fan is 12 feet in diameter and each building houses 12 fans; six blower fans to draw in fresh air and six fan to expel uses air and automobile emissions.

The total amount of fresh air that can be supplied to the ducts of the tunnel is approximately 1,500,000 cubic feet a minute, which gives a complete change of air every 90 seconds. Fresh air comes into the tunnel under the roadway through apertures near the curb. Used or vitiated air is thrown off through two rows of openings located at frequent intervals in the ceiling.

While the fresh air is drawn into the ventilation buildings, the vitiated air is expelled through exhausts located at the top of each building. The safety factor of the tunnel is so great that there is no possibility of the air becoming gaseous even if most of the fans were to stop functioning. The ventilating system is patterned after that in the Holland Tunnel in New York.

Did you know that...

The magnitude of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel job is well indicated by the following figures relative to the work performed and the quantities of materials used in the construction of the mile-long tube:

Total excavated material yards	525,000 cubic yards
River excavation	275,000 cubic yards
Weight of excavated material	787,500 tons
Concrete poured	80,000 cubic yards
Reinforcing steel used	750 tons
Total structural steel	11,000 tons
Lining for shield-driven sections	3,900 tons
River tubes	3,550 tons
Electrical conduits	50.5 miles
Roadway area	4 acres
Granite blocks in original roadway	2,000,000
Wall area	2.5 acres
Number of wall tiles	250,000
Lights in tunnel	574
Welding	12 miles
Depth of mud over tunnel	4 to 20 feet
Maximum depth of water	45 feet
Maximum depth of trench	50 feet
Maximum depth of roadway	75 feet
Length of tunnel	5,160 feet
Length of river section	2,200 feet
American shield-driven section	1,243 feet
American approach	627 feet
Canadian approach	600 feet
Cost	$23,000,000
Width of roadway	22 feet
Traffic capacity per hour	2,000 vehicles
Maximum number of laborers employed simultaneously	600

The Tunnel was finished a year ahead of schedule at a total cost of $23 Million.
The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was formally dedicated on Saturday, November 1, 1930. President Herbert Hoover turned a "golden key" in Washington that rang bells in both Detroit and Windsor to mark the opening of the tunnel.
The Tunnel is jointly owned by the Cities of Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan.
It is operated under two separate agreements by the Detroit and Canada Tunnel Corporation.
Approximately 27,000 to 29,000 vehicles pass through the Tunnel on a daily basis, handles almost nine million vehicles per year, of which 95% are cars and 5% are trucks.
Ventilation - 1.5 million cubic feet of fresh air is pumped into the tunnel each minute. The air is completely changed every 90 seconds.
Renovations: A $50 Million renovation program was launched in 1993, including a completely new road surface, new sidewall tiling, new lighting, complete video surveillance and restoration of the Tunnel's stone cover beneath the Detroit River.
Plazas: The Detroit Tunnel Plaza was renovated in 1980 and offers 6 toll booths (3 automatic and 3 attended) and multiple Customs Inspection Booths. The Windsor Plaza was reconstructed in 1995 and offers 6 toll booths (3 automatic and 3 attended), 9 Customs Inspection Booths and 3 dedicated truck inspection lanes.

A Vision for the Future

The Detroit Windsor Tunnel (Tunnel) is steeped in a history of serving the southeast Michigan and Windsor/Essex regions. The Detroit & Canada Tunnel Corporation (DCTC) believes that an opportunity exists that would allow the Tunnel to continue its rich history while providing a renewed level of service and value that will contribute to the revitalization of our cities.

DCTC believes that the development of an integrated regional transportation strategy that focuses on enhancing the overall security and efficiency of the Detroit-Windsor corridor will address the strengths and weaknesses of the region's existing border crossings.

Border crossings, in general, and the Detroit-Windsor crossings in particular, are faced with significant challenges. September 11th 2001 and the months that followed demonstrated how dependent travelers and commerce are on the existing crossings and how vulnerable the economies of Canada and the United States are to disruptions in the steady flow of goods and people.

While the federal, state, and provincial governments have recognized the need for additional resources and technology at our borders and are working to ensure that both are brought to our crossings, there is an equally important need to ensure that the infrastructure to support these new resources is available. In the absence of enhanced human, technology, and infrastructure resources, the vision of a smart and secure border, capable of the efficient and timely movement of low risk travelers and commerce, cannot be realized.

DCTC envisions that, for the next 100 years, the Tunnel will continue to serve as a critical international gateway between the cities of Detroit and Windsor. The structural changes required to provide a smart border would serve the dual purpose of meeting the needs of the United States and Canada and of supporting the needs of the Windsor and Detroit business communities into the 21st century.

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was originally designed with limited queuing space on either plaza and with overflow traffic held in the tube itself. Prior to the events of September 11th, traffic volumes during rush hours and other high usage periods created gridlocks on adjacent city streets.

Since September 11th, DCTC has prohibited the queuing of vehicles in the Tunnel in order to enhance the safety and security of the Tunnel and its patrons. As a result, the 250+ cars that would normally queue in the Tunnel now overflow onto city streets.

For the most part, the Tunnel's customer base is comprised of regional passenger and commercial -- 97% of which have an origin/destination within the Detroit and Windsor area. This fact makes the Tunnel an optimum candidate for low risk traveler facilitation programs such as NEXUS.

NEXUS

DCTC believes that its future success is tied to the implementation of a low risk traveler facilitation program such as NEXUS. Since the majority of the Tunnel's traffic consists of passenger vehicles, a NEXUS program would provide one of the most effective and efficient ways to improve security at the Tunnel while providing a means to increase the overall utilization of the usable roadway.

The success of Nexus and like programs will depend on customer usage, choice of technology, and facility improvements.

The degree to which the Tunnel's customers utilize the program is critical to its success. DCTC believes that the program will have strong appeal with our commuters and will positively impact rush hour traffic volumes. However, such success will not be achievable without significant efforts to promote high usage on a sustained basis.

The effectiveness of Nexus also hinges on the choice of technology. The technological option that is selected must have universal application, convenience of use, and ease of management. DCTC recognizes that the federal agencies must provide certain components of any low risk program. However, DCTC believes that the crossing authorities are well positioned to provide the most efficient administration of the program in terms of customer sign-up, program support, and promotion. Additional efficiencies could be realized if the program were jointly administered by the Ambassador Bride and the Tunnel.

Two other factors that are integral to the program's success are the provision of space for queuing higher risk travelers and of special service lanes for expediting enrolled low risk travelers. While both of these requirements pose a challenge given our current, cramped urban environment, the potential to meet these challenges exists on both sides of the Tunnel.

Preliminary engineering designs estimate that the cost to provide a workable solution on the US side within the existing 4.5-acre footprint would be in the range of US $50 to US $70 million. The final cost of improvements will depend on the availability of additional land, the inclusion of additional venues, and the requirements to address other downtown needs and concerns as part of the redevelopment. The challenges on the Windsor side are similar. However, the cost of redeveloping the Windsor plaza could be somewhat less given the availability of additional land in close proximity to the existing plaza. In both cases, the cost trade-offs will involve decisions between expensive facilities or valuable land.

Reverse Inspections

Reverse inspections are another initiative that have received significant attention since September 11th. In the Tunnel's case, this term refers to the provision of primary inspection services prior to entering the Tunnel.

Reverse inspections are considered to be one of the most effective methods of improving the security of an international crossing with a specialized infrastructure, i.e. a bridge or tunnel. Reverse inspections also increase the overall efficient use of existing lane capacity. The roadway becomes the most efficient variable in the equation with the implementation of reverse inspections. Once a vehicle has been cleared through inspection, no other impediments exist to the flow of traffic other than the overall design capacity of the roadway.

Crossing authorities, such as DCTC, could not reasonably duplicate the level of security provided by the primary inspections conducted by the Customs and Immigration agencies. In the case of the Tunnel's two-lane roadway where queuing is not permitted and expedited service for low risk travelers is provided, reverse inspections will provide the most efficient solution. Without reverse inspections, the requirement to effectively queue traffic on both sides will negatively impact the utilization of the available lane capacity.

Other security solutions include the development of a regional emergency notification system. DCTC is collaborating with a Detroit-based technology company to develop such a system.

Tolling Technology

The crossing authorities in the Detroit and Windsor area currently use a blend of toll collection technologies that include magnetic swipe cards, tokens, and transponders.

DCTC envisions a regional tolling strategy, the cornerstone of which would be a common technology that provides users with the flexibility and convenience of using the crossing of their choice.

It is DCTC's expectation that the toll collection technology will be compatible with that used for NEXUS, adding yet another level of convenience for our customers. A combined tolling strategy would provide increased flexibility and therefore improved efficiency during times of emergency or congestion. Any efficiency gain in the movement of goods and people through the corridor should be viewed as a long-term gain for everyone.

DCTC would also like to pursue one-way tolling. The space available for the plazas is restricted. Some economies would be captured if toll collection in the Detroit-Windsor region were conducted on a one-way basis. Currently, customers must stop and pay a toll each time they enter the Tunnel. On a one-way basis, customers would only pay a toll when traveling into the US or into Canada. In addition to saving space that can be better allocated for queuing requirements, some additional efficiency could be gained in shorter crossing times by reducing the time spent paying tolls. One-way tolling will positively impact operations.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)

Given the advancement in today's technologies, DCTC envisions a regional transportation strategy for our international crossings that include ITS systems that are integrated with regional transportation authorities and that assist travelers during times of emergency and congestion. If the Detroit-Windsor crossings become more efficient and more user-friendly, they will be positioned to be the corridor of choice.

Plaza Design

The current plazas for the Tunnel are designed for passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses. To increase the space that can be allocated to queuing of passenger cars, DCTC envisions that the new plazas would only accommodate larger commercial vehicles on a limited basis. The plaza could be designed to facilitate trucks during emergencies. However, only low risk truck traffic would use the Tunnel on a regular basis.

The potential benefits of this strategy include the following:

The opportunity for federal inspection services to specialize and improve overall efficiency.
The provision of specific truck routes to accommodate the pre-clearance of commercial traffic while enhancing security.
Improved use of ITS/VMS solutions to direct commercial and passenger traffic on regional freeways.
A reduced need for redundant resources such as portable X-ray equipment.
Reduced air, visual, and noise pollution in the downtown core.
Reduced road construction costs.
Prolonged municipal roadway life expectancy.

The Tunnel is a key component in Detroit's and Windsor's transportation infrastructure. DCTC's goal is to provide and operate transportation plazas that serve the requirements of an international crossing and the unique needs of a busy urban environment while enhancing the destination value of the downtown core in Detroit and Windsor.

DCTC believes that an integrated solution should take into consideration the following objectives:

Relocating traffic queues for the Tunnel from city streets. Benefits include:
- Reduced traffic congestion on city streets provides for a safer environment, i.e. ability to ensure movement of emergency vehicles.
- Providing the city the opportunity to reallocate police service from traffic control to other uses.
- Improved traffic flow for current and new downtown development.
Improving the overall aesthetics of the Tunnel Plazas and, in so doing, making the first impression of our downtowns a positive one.
Expanding the sales opportunities for Duty Free shopping.
Integrating tourist venues to enhance the destination value of the downtown Windsor and Detroit.
Developing additional parking.
Promoting a more pedestrian-friendly environment.
Incorporating other service venues that add value and attract travelers.

Third Crossing

DCTC supports the process to determine the need and location for a third crossing. DCTC hopes to play a role in the operations and/or development of that crossing. At the same time, DCTC believes that there is an immediate need to invest in the existing crossings and in the transportation infrastructure that supports these crossings. It is imperative that the existing crossings are capable of meeting the corridor's needs over the next 7 to 10 years and the right investments today will help to ensure that the timing for the third crossing is better optimized.

Public and Private Partnerships

The ownership of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel by the cities of Windsor and Detroit provides both cities with sources of revenue that include tolls, taxes, and rental payments. Both cities capture these revenues through a number of public and private sector partnerships or agreements. The Tunnel's future success requires significant investment in the infrastructure to support the people and the technology that the federal agencies are bringing to the border. The investment in people and technology will not bring the efficiencies needed to our borders if the infrastructure is not there to support them.

In addition to supporting the needs at our borders, the challenge for our cities is to maximize the value of assets such as the Tunnel on behalf of the citizens as well as on behalf of the local and national economies. DCTC believes that the current demands at the border provide an ideal opportunity to revisit existing public and private partnerships, to explore new and exciting ways to ensure the viability of our border crossings, and to maximize asset value. DCTC would like to increase its participation levels in the Detroit and Windsor region and believes that it can leverage its operating experience and financial strengths via its association with Macquarie Bank, to assist the cities of Detroit and Windsor in maximizing the value and contribution of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

DCTC foresees a bright future for the Windsor-Detroit region, and wants to play a leadership role in contributing toward and participating in the future success of North America's busiest trade corridor.

DCTC is looking to extend and expand its already extensive long-term commitment to this region.