February 26, 2010

RON STANG

The cofferdam, with in-water dolphins, is underconstruction for the creation of the new Detroit-Windsor truck ferry ramp.

FEATURE | Roadbuilding

Major revamp for Windsor-Detroit ‘hazmat’ ferry dock

RON STANG

correspondent

WINDSOR, ONT.

Despite its four-month construction time frame — and November start date — by late January more than half the work had been completed at the Detroit-Windsor truck ferry dock in Windsor’s Ojibway Industrial Park.

Dredging of a deeper ferry channel had been completed. In-water dolphins — the 1.2 metre diameter drum-like posts that will carry the catwalk and support the hoist for the new on-and-off ramp to the ferry — had been submerged 30 metres up to bedrock under the Detroit River floor.

And cofferdams — the steel rectangular containers with reinforcing piles and which will be filled with concrete — had been installed at the dock’s edge. Two of them, only five metres apart on a slope, provide the support leading from the dock to the hoisted ramp.

Meanwhile the 400-metre road connecting the well used truck route Maplewood Drive to the ferry dock had a crisp new layer of gravel. A tandem roller was working its way along the surface. Underneath new storm sewers had been placed with a new drainage ditch alongside.

The Ambassador Bridge and the Windsor Detroit Tunnel are the two major crossings between Windsor and Detroit. Lesser known is the hazardous goods ferry.

Since Earth Day 1990 the ferry, a barge pushed by a tug, makes several trips a day and lately it’s been up to 14, carrying five tractor-trailers each time across the almost two-kilometre international river crossing.

The privately-run ferry carries trucks with hazardous goods which are banned by the bridge and tunnel and oversized loads.

Recently it has been carrying a lot of tower segments for wind turbines being shipped from the U.S. and destined for many southwestern Ontario wind farms under construction.

The $8.8 million project is included in $300 million of special federal-provincial infrastructure money, announced in 2005, to alleviate some of existing traffic congestion leading to the border.

The money is separate from the estimated $5 billion for the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC), which includes an entirely new bridge, Customs plaza, and dedicated six lane below-grade freeway leading to Hwy. 401. Initial construction on the freeway part of the project began in December.

“The main in-water work, which is the most complex part of this project, is well underway,” Nino D’Alessandro, area contracts engineer for the Ministry of Transportation’s west region, says.

“The main in-water work, which is the most complex part of this project, is well underway,” according to Rakesh Shreewastav, the MTO’s senior project engineer. “And we’re working very closely to make sure it’s going on as scheduled.”

On a tour of the site, a Dean Construction Co. Ltd. crane was driving a giant corkscrew bit into the river bed to make way for a dolphin. Before the dolphins are fit for use, muck will have to be extracted, rock anchors installed and the cylinders filled with concrete. Rubber fenders will cover them.

Prior to the construction the dock site was accessible by a one lane gravel road from Maplewood Drive. This is being widened to two paved lanes with lighting.

The road will end at the dock parking lot which will be paved with clearly marked lanes.

High mast lighting — similar to that at a freeway interchange — will be installed, with conventional lighting around the perimeter.

Trucks will descend from Maplewood to a customs kiosk, which will be at the head of a concrete divider, keeping apart inbound and outbound trucks in the parking lot.

While Dean has the in-water contract the general contractor is Mill-Am Corp.

A new railway crossing had to be constructed for the short-line Essex Terminal Railway at the top of the hill where Maplewood meets the ferry road. As well, the truck staging area at the dock itself will be configured so it’s much easier to get on and off the ferry. Gone will be another sharp turn from the ferry onto the parking lot and up the road.

The previous awkward turning configuration “limited us as to what we could take,” ferry vice president Gregg Ward said. “With this new system it really puts us in a good position to service especially the larger windmill projects.”

The ferry service is scheduled to reopen in February. During construction trucks have had to make an almost 250 km detour to the Blue Water Bridge between Sarnia and Pt. Huron, Michigan.

Virtually every contingency has been planned for at the site, including a hazardous spill containment system.

“It looks like a manhole,” D’Alessandro, pointing to the area in the parking lot, says. “And connected to that is a very large (1.2 m) slump sewer pipe so if there is a spill it can be contained in that system.”

After landscaping is completed in spring the Detroit-Windsor ferry will no longer look like the poor cousin to the area’s other crossings, finally getting the infrastructure respect it deserves.

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