Angst On The Sidelines Of MoTown’s Automotive Crisis: The Future Role Of The Ambassador Bridge

By Gunnar Heinrich

WHO knew that one fourth of all trade between the United States and Canada passes over one solitary bridge?

In an article that highlights, among other things, the manner in which two commercially entwined countries, a bankrupt state, a hopeful province, two destitute cities, a Machiavellian billionaire, and a hardened newspaper all seek a way forward in a future clouded by current doubts, “Matty Moroun’s Bridge Battle” by Detroit News‘ Charlie LeDuff is a compelling read.

Mr. LeDuff’s reporting picks up on a story earlier published by the New York Times of how one private citizen and enterprising businessman Manuel “Matty” Moroun owns (the company that owns) the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit, MI, USA to Windsor, ON, Canada. 

The bridge, it seems, is a bottleneck of interests; the first set being Mr. Moroun’s own.

$1.25 BILLION

According to the paper, Mr. Moroun’s $1.25 Billion per year cash cow is one man’s legacy standing in the face of Canadian sponsored competition (they want to build another bridge down river) to free up the border through which much cross-border trade (including cars and their parts) flows daily. 

Detroit’s Big Three automakers have an interest, though little say, in the bridge.

Considering that each company operates factories and serve customers on both sides of the border and that, thanks to peninsular geography and the gravitational limits on trucking, there’s only one bridge sensible way to cross to Canada without going north to Port Huron or circumnavigating the Canadian Shield, it’s incredible that there aren’t Henry Ford or Walter P. Chrysler memorial bridges spanning the Detroit River.

But as much as the story is about the suspension bridge, a significant portion of the story focuses on the span’s reclusive owner and how such a powerful Michigan force could grow from zero amidst the likes of GM and Ford and still not be part of that state’s dominant industry. 

A NEW CADDY EVERY WEEK

An excerpt from Mr. LeDuff’s interview with Mr. Moroun discussing growing up amidst MoTown’s chromed largesse and it’s current decline.

[Moroun:] “I remember Pete Ahrens at U of D. His father was general manager and vice president of GM. Christ, he drove a new Cadillac to school every week. The Fisher boys went there. All the kids had new cars. Christ, I had a streetcar and a bus, that’s how I got to school. It made me feel I was very inadequate. I felt inadequate. Not up to the deal.

“I’m more comfortable now, but I still look in awe at people like that. You can’t shake that. It’s hard to shake that. Today, I look at GM borrowing every last nickel they can. And you think of the children of those people I went to school with. It all crumbled.”

And now Mr. Moroun collects the $12 average toll on almost every rig that ships goods for Chrysler, Ford, and GM between America and Canada. Perhaps that’s why Chrysler, LLC has advocated building a publicly funded bridge further downstream.

Who knew? 

[Linked: Detroit News]