Sixteen construction and transportation organizations joined Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) in calling on President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to swiftly approve construction of a new international trade crossing (NITC) between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

The new bridge will serve as an alternative at the busiest U.S./Canada commercial border crossing.

Each day, more than 8,000 trucks use the Ambassador Bridge, an 83-year-old structure, which carried $120 billion of trade in 2011.

Inadequate capacity is restricting job creation and economic growth opportunities and the situation will only worsen as truck traffic at the border crossing is expected to increase 128 percent over the next 30 years. The Ambassador Bridge is inadequate to handle the demands of international commerce, according to the organizations.

In a Dec. 13 letter to the Obama administration coordinated by AED, organizations representing construction workers, contractors, suppliers, businesses, manufacturers, and highway users said that, “[w]hile the new bridge is expected to sustain and create millions of jobs in the United States once finished, there will be an immediate boost to the construction sector as this significant infrastructure project gets under way.”

The project is expected to support 10,000 to 15,000 direct construction jobs in Michigan alone, though the long lasting impact of a NITC will be felt by the entire region.

“The entire Midwest relies on reliable transportation infrastructure at the Detroit-Windsor crossing to get goods to the market,” the letter read.

For more information, visit http://aedaction.org/uploads/sites/370/

AED-DetroitWindsorBridgeCoalitionletter-20121213.pdf.

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