LANSING – The single most significant proposal Governor Rick Snyder has made that has not yet been put to the Legislature in bill form, to build a new Detroit River international crossing, is being crafted with care, Lt. Governor Brian Calley said Thursday, with the aim of ensuring the state does not lose out on the maximum funding it can get for transportation purposes.
Calley said at a press conference that efforts to move the New International Trade Crossing, as Snyder has styled it, have involved negotiations and discussions with legislators, the federal government and Canadian officials.
The upshot of the efforts will be legislation to create an authority, Calley said, that will allow for the private sector to be part of the process.
While critics have charged the bridge proposal is something that government is trying to impose when it is un-needed, Calley said the bridge project will fully bring the private sector into the process of building the structure.
Most businesses and business groups in Michigan have supported building the new bridge and Canadian business groups, as well as the Canadian government, are solidly behind the measure. But to date legislative Republicans have opposed it because the owners of the Ambassador Bridge have called for being allowed to build a new span next to the current bridge and at their own cost. Canadian officials have so far not approved the permits needed for that project.
Calley said once the authority structure is in place it will help assure that the state takes advantage over the long-term and gets all the matching funds it is entitled to from the federal government for infrastructure projects.
Snyder had announced earlier that the state would use the $550 million the Canadian government has offered to pay the state’s portion of construction costs to get more matching money from the federal government for highway projects.
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