Marshall, a principal of the McClintic — Marshall Company, a noted Pittsburgh engineering firm, to adopt the project. Bower, the banker with a record for snatching success from the jaws of defeat. After studying the finances and construction of bridge projects in this country and in Europe, Bower took up the project late in , purchasing options of the stock of the Canadian and American Transit companies primarily because of the government authorizations.
He appointed John Austin treasurer, retained McClintic-Marshall to engineer and build the bridge, and began securing the necessary endorsements from approving agencies and public bodies. Negotiating any bureaucracy can be intimidating.
Joseph Bower was merely proposing to build the longest suspension bridge in the world. Congress and the Canadian Parliament. And on top of this, Bower arranged the financing.
After gaining these approvals, Bower applied to local authorities for their consent. The town of Sandwich, Ontario, quickly concurred. Essex County, Ontario, held a spirited referendum in which the bridge project was approved by the voters. Bower would build his bridge feet above the Detroit River. But Detroit Mayor John W.
Johnny Smith had yet to assert his authority. He cast his veto. The Council overrode it, and he countered in Wayne County Circuit Court with a petition for a restraining order, blocking progress on the bridge until a popular referendum could be held. Presumably, Joseph Bower and John Austin conferred again. Perhaps they recalled their first meeting several years before.
They had come so far. The financing was in hand. The plans were drawn. The authorities had been satisfied. Smith faced re-election, and at the time needed to assert his position as a champion of the electorate. His ally, powerful Robert Wildflower Oakman, did not welcome competition for his real estate activities in northwest Detroit from the direction of southwest Ontario.
But the pair might have gauged their opponent more warily. Joseph Bower knew that his support among the citizenry was as solid as the planned bedrock foundation of his bridge. With customary thoroughness, every objection had been refuted or resolved. Bower declined to fight Smith in court.
Full-page advertisements darkened newsprint in Detroit with charges and counterclaims. Public meeting fueled private debates. John Lodge, then a member of the Common Council, became a leading supporter of the bridge, and saw his mayoral candidacy enhanced. Finally, the eve of the election, Mayor Smith took to the airwaves for a final condemnation of the proposal.
It proved his undoing. As Smith was leaving the studio, he encountered H. Esselstyn, a highly respected engineer on the Belle Isle Bridge works, and, at the time, Commissioner of Street Railways.
Esselstyn was about to broadcast a statement favorable to the bridge interests. Smith fired him on the spot. Nonetheless, he spoke into the microphone with a calm suited to his considered technical opinions, as he had prepared to do.
The following day, June 28, , 74, votes were cast, an extremely high turnout for such a special election. The bridge carried by an 8 to I margin. In October of that year, John C. Lodge defeated Smith in the mayoral primary election. Construction had actually begun a month and a half before the referendum. Congress had ruled that construction would have to begin by May 12, , or the bridge franchise would expire. The general contract for construction was signed July 20, , and made operative August McClintic-Marshal was allowed until August 16, , to complete the job.
If it was not done by that date, the engineering firm would be liable for interest on the securities until the bridge began producing income. If McClintic-Marshall finished the job in advance of the deadline, they would be entitled to half the revenues between the date the bridge opened and April 16, Just over two years later — on November 11, — the Ambassador Bridge was ready for operation.
McClintic-Marshall had brought the job in one percent. When the Ambassador Bridge opened for traffic four days later, its almost 21, tons of steel rose at never more than a five percent grade to an apex of feet above the swift current of the Detroit River.
Its 1,foot center span made it the longest suspension bridge in the world. Its total length was 7, feet, with the U. The roadway was 47 feet wide with an eight-foot-wide sidewalk on the west side. The twin silicon steel towers that rose majestically feet above the ground were built on concrete piers resting on bedrock feet below the surface.
The cables — but not these cables — were also the most dramatic story of the construction. The hissing of acetylene torches, the rasp of steel and the clatter of long lengths of cable being cut from the Ambassador Bridge to make room for stronger strands filled the air around the Bridge in the spring and early summer of , just months before the Bridge would open.
McClintic-Marshall had specified that the then-new heat-treated wire cables be used instead of the universally used cold drawn steel wire. The new heat-treated wire cables had been tested and found to have much higher tensile strength than the cold drawn steel wire used on the Brooklyn Bridge, for example, for 50 years.
Progress on the Detroit River span was a whole year ahead of schedule. But the up mood on the Ambassador Bridge turned sharply downward when word reached Detroit on February 22 that a number of broken wires had been found in the cables of the even more nearly completed Mount Hope Bridge in Rhode Island.
This bridge shared with the Ambassador Bridge the distinction of being the first to use heat-treated wire instead of cold drawn steel. It came to light that three broken strands had been found near the Bristol, Rhode Island anchorage of the Mount Hope Bridge as early as January of McClintic-Marshall, the same engineering firm that was building the Mount Hope Bridge, halted work on the Ambassador Bridge on March I and summoned a team of consultants from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to examine the situation and report.
Based on that report, McClintic-Marshall — with full concurrence of Joseph Bower decided to absorb the half-million-dollar expense of removing the cables over the Detroit River and replacing them with time-tested cold-drawn steel wire. When the torches began hissing and the cutters began lopping the enormous cables into manageable lengths and lowering them to the ground, it was thought the entire year that work crews had gained on their three-year contract was hopelessly wiped out.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times in order to maintain website functionality and so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again. This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
More information about our Cookie Policy. Toggle navigation. Can you walk across the Ambassador Bridge? While there is a sidewalk on one side of the bridge, pedestrians are not allowed to walk across the bridge. Whilst technically you can walk from Detroit to Windsor or walk from Windsor to Detroit it entails a kilometre route around Lake St Claire. There are plans to allow pedestrian access on the forthcoming Gordie Howie Bridge. Cycling is currently prohibited too.
How much is the Ambassador Bridge Toll? This rate applies every day without exception. When is the bridge open? The structure is built mainly of steel 21, tons and has a roadway that rises as high as feet above the Detroit River. At the time of its construction, the Ambassador Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in the world, only to be surpassed two years later by the George Washington Bridge, spanning the Hudson River.
The Moroun family has upheld plans to construct a new bridge beside the aging Ambassador Bridge, which has been stalled for years by both Canadian and American governments. A new, publicly owned bridge, the Gordie Howe International Bridge will be built a few miles south of the Ambassador Bridge.
The Ambassador Bridge remains the largest international suspension bridge in the world. On average, more than 10, vehicles traverse the bridge every weekday. Approximately one quarter of all trade between the U.
0コメント