(Update: RoadTraffic-Technology article)
The Gordie Howe International Bridge should relieve the congestion on this bridge.
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| Detroit Public Library Digital Collections |
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| Curt Danielewicz shared Mike Murin's photo Construction hasn't finished on the Ambassador Bridge the Deck hasn't been completed,,Showing the Train yard for the Fort Street Union Depot near the 6th Street Train Tower that controlled Train traffic to Union Depot.. Wabash boat yard on the Detroit River as well as the passenger car and locomotive servicing area of Detroit's Fort St Station. Rodney D Zona Judging by the construction of the Ambassador Bridge, the shot above was taken in 1928, 1929 or 1930. |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted A mid construction view of the Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River, see from Windsor, Ontario's Assumption Church, 1928. (University of Windsor) |
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| Epyon Royal posted The Bower family deserves more recognition for this amazing bridge. BeLinda Lee: The Train Station in the background. |
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| Ambassador Bridge Here's a photo that captures the Ambassador Bridge construction progress over a frozen Detroit River on February 21, 1929. Brian Maxwell: This was before defects were found in the suspension cables and construction halted on March 25. Hard to believe they removed and replaced the suspended deck and cables in time for the Nov 11 grand opening. Nancy Kelly: Doesn’t freeze anymore. Jan Bondy-Chorney: Nancy Kelly Detroit River had to be dredged to make it deeper so it wouldn't freeze and stop ships from delivering it's cargo. James Torgeson shared Working in frigid conditions, ironworkers from McClintic-Marshall erect the deck for the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit, MI and Windsor, ON. Within a few years, the firm would be purchased by Bethlehem Steel. In the distance, a railroad carferry literally pours on the coal as she plows through the ice. The bridge is currently the busiest crossing between the United States and Canada. |
At first, I thought this was the same photo as above. But then I noticed the smoke is different. The boat on the river is in a different location.
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| Historic Detroit posted Construction of the Ambassador Bridge (1920s) |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted "The suspension cables hang down, waiting for the road platform to be installed during the building of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Full scale construction began on both sides of the river in August 1927." (The Detroit News Archives) Dave Frieder: Correct term is Suspender ropes. They are WIRE Ropes. James Torgeson: Dave Frieder And spun at Roebling, not onsite. |
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| Dave Frieder commented on James' comment Did you see this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From Clifford Zink's book, the Roebling Legacy. |
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| Winninoah Poohi posted Construction is underway at the international Ambassador Bridge in 1928, linking traffic from Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. The Detroit News Archives |
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| Peter Dudley shared Note the semi-circle of vents (lower-left): Detroit's 1929 Ambassador Bridge was built directly-over the 1924 Union Belt of Detroit (UBD) 21st Street Engine Terminal. One bridge pier had to be carefully-designed and constructed, to avoid interfering with work inside the roundhouse. This odd-looking steel work is the only surviving reminder of what once was.Peter Dudley  Click on the link, to see "the rest of the story".https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1542107266047574&set=a.1408863689371933&type=3&theater&ifg=1 |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted On Detroit-Windsor's Ambassador Bridge, c. 1928. (Wayne State University) |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted "Group portrait of construction workers posing on Ambassador Bridge. Row of buckets with brushes is displayed in front of men. Printed on front: "Ambassador Bridge, Nov. 5, 1929." (Detroit Public Library) |
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| Ambassador Bridge posted Here's a great view of automobiles making their way into Canada via the Ambassador Bridge in the 1950s. Bridges Now and Then shared |
You can tell that I favor railroad bridges. According to my labels, this is the first suspension bridge that I have written about.
Note how the roadbed curves up in the above photo so that it looks like it would end in a V. After they add the additional weight of the remaining roadbed, the cables should bend down so that the roadbed meets as a smooth curve.
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| Mike Russel photo from Bridge Hunter Used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. |
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| Ambassador Reward Card |
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Ken Janeczko posted
Fearless - downbound past the Ambassador Bridge on Sunday afternoon.
[This is the posting that made me aware of this bridge.] |
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| cmh2315fl Flickr Photo, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) [This is the first of five photos of this bridge.] Ambassador Bridge (Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, Canada)Historic 1929 Ambassador Bridge over the Detroit River between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
The bridge is a suspension bridge with a Warren pony truss main suspended span. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built.
The bridge toll bridge is privately owned by the Detroit International Bridge Company. |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted Detroit-Windsor's Ambassador Bridge. (Helmut Ziewers) https://historicdetroit.org/galleries/ambassador-bridge-photos James Torgeson: Steelwork by McClintic-Marshall! |
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| Andrew Dean Detroit posted The Calumet heading up to Belle Isle Anchorage and passing under the Ambassador Bridge. 8/15/2021 |
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| Andrew Dean Detroit posted Johnny Noodle King in Detroit, - Noodles with a view! Michael Daugherty: Noticed Arrow truck parts in the background there. Had them resurface a flywheel, they didn't remove all the dowel locator pins before resurfacing and ruined my flywheel with no effort to make it right. I still have it as a shop paperweight when I need to hold something down lol |
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| Expressway Explorers Among the busiest bridges in the U.S Ambassador Bridge, Detroit-Windsor, United States. See More: nickeyscircle.com/cable-stayed-bridges/ |
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| Ambassador Bridge posted View from the center of the U.S. tower looking into Windsor, Ontario. Bridges Now and Then shared Richard Kallenbach: Never seen it that empty. |
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| One of four photos of the boat posted by Andrew Dean Detroit Frontenac heading down the Detroit River passing The Ambassador Bridge. Brian Komejan: On this, the 46th anniversery of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I think it's fitting to recognize that the Frontenac was one of the boats that attempted to join the search for the Big Fitz the following morning. But, she was driven back by the still heavy seaway outside of Whitefish Bay. She's a beautiful 'classic' straight decker. |
Once again, "being on the cutting edge of technology can make you bleed:"
The Changing of the CablesIt sounds like they tested for tensile strength but not brittleness and/or fatigue failure.
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 1929, 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.
These heat-treated wires had been woven strand by strand into the 37 component cables of each of the two massive main cables that would support the world's longest suspension bridge, and by mid-February of 1929, the suspenders, like steel harp strings, had been hung from the cables and work had begun to fasten the steel framework of the roadway to the weighted ends of these suspenders. 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 1929. Subsequent inspection on the Detroit River project revealed a few under any other circumstances, not an alarming number of broken wires in the Ambassador Bridge's cables.
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. But the old cables were replaced with new in time to hang the roadway and open the bridge on November 11 - nine months ahead of schedule. [History]
"Michigan has had the distinction of having twice built the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Ambassador Bridge, constructed in 1929, was the first, and the Mackinac Bridge was the second." [Historic Bridges]
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| Andrew Dean Detroit posted Framed sunset Passed 1000 followers on Facebook today, thanks everyone for the follows and support. Love taking pictures, love to share what I see in the city and other places, glad everyone enjoys! Roger Riblett shared Dennis DeBruler: The steel towers under the approach span caught my eye. I never realized that the approach spans are not suspended on this bridge until I saw this view. |
Andrew Dean Detroit posted three photos with the comment: "Detroit Fire Department Fireboat- Sivad Johnson."
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| Craig Hensley Photography added to the album Boats of the Great Lakes |
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| Craig Hensley Photography posted Happy Canada Day to our neighbors across the river!  Pictured is the Ambassador Bridge, the connection from Detroit to Windsor. Tech: DJI Mavic Air 2s |
It appears the bridge has four lanes with NO shoulders, but it has a pedestrian/bike walk. However, Historic Bridges reports that the pedestrian walk has been closed since 9/11/2001. This would be another example of bureaucrats, feeling that they must do something, allow the terrorists to win by negatively impacting our way of life with ineffective restrictions. What is a pedestrian going to do? Cut the cables with a bolt cutter? If someone wanted to bomb the bridge, they would put the bomb in a van rather than hand carry it. Historic Bridges says that vehicles are not searched until after they have crossed the bridge. "In addition, HistoricBridges.org has read reports of photographers in this park being harassed by Detroit International Bridge Company security guards (who patrol the lands bought up by the Detroit International Bridge Company around the bridge) even if the photographer is on public property, such as in the riverside park, and thus not in violation of any law." [Historic Bridges] This is another example that the person in charge of security is "overzealous."
The company that owns the Ambassador Bridge is proposing a new 6-lane-with-safety-shoulders, cable-stayed bridge to be built next to the current bridge. In the meantime, the governments are planning a much more appropriate cable stay bridge further downstream to directly connect I-94/I-75 with KH-401. This would keep heavy traffic off the city streets in Windsor. The bridge company's argument that a downtown bridge would bring more business to the downtown is totally bogus. When I have to drive through a big city, I try to plan to do it off hours and the last thing I'm going to do is stop in the big city. The "more business for downtown" argument indicates to me that they are grasping at straws as to why their bridge should be built rather than a beltway bridge. But the family that owns the bridge wants their golden goose to lay even bigger eggs. [The "related content" articles in MichiganRadio] (Update: even though construction on the Gordie Howe International Bridge started in 2018, the Moroun family continued to fight it. [freep])
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"The Project will retain the existing historic bridge for overflow traffic, use by bridge maintenance vehicles and special events. " [SecondSpan]
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Three of the photos posted by Helen Cooper. She was taking photos of the ships that were docked in town, but she got some interesting closeups of the bridge as well.
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| c [The ships are docked at the Mistersky Refueling Dock. Before I spotted the big storage tanks, I thought the smokestacks were for the Mistersky Power Generating Station. But after I spotted the tnaks, I realized the powerplant's stacks are out-of-frame to the right. We can see the edge of the power plant in this photo. The smokestacks must be part of the steel mills further downriver.] |
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| Craig Hensley Photography posted Shoving Under the Bridge CSX GP40-3 #6558 shoves under the Amabassador bridge as they head to work the 12th Steet transflow at the end of the boat line. A sunny and cloudless day in Detroit made for some pretty good pictures! CSX Y194 - Detroit, MI - November 2023 High res image: https://www.craighensleyphotography.com/.../i-shp5Jsm/A |
Craig's photo reminded me that the approaches to a big bridge are non-trivial bridges in their own right. I grabbed another view of the cable anchor and the approach.
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| Street View, Jul 2018 |
Update: the family that owns this bridge is also the one that owned the Michigan Central Depot and they allowed it to fall into disrepair.
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