Two sides of Gordie Howe International Bridge near connection
The American and Canadian sides of the international span are about 85 feet from touching over the Detroit River.
A construction crew works on the deck of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, May 14, 2024.
Construction crews on the Gordie Howe International Bridge are about 85 feet from connecting the two sides of the international span between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
The project broke ground in 2018. Work did not stop during the COVID-19 pandemic but did face some slowdowns.
David Henderson is CEO of Bridging North America. He says workers will begin installing the final portion of bridge deck in late June.
“It’s assembled very similar to the…sections that we’ve put in place already up to this point,” said Henderson. “But before we place the outside girders there, we’ll actually put in a temporary frame and some hydraulic jacks to help us do the final alignment on the bridge.”
Henderson says it could take about four weeks to complete the connection.
“There’s been no more than 100 to 150 millimeters of deviation as they were coming,” Henderson said. “They were targeting each other all the way across.”
Bridge officials say installation of the span’s 216 cables will be finished sometime next month. The current timeline is for the Gordie Howe International Bridge to open in September of 2025.
The project originally had a roughly $4.2 billion budget for design, construction and a 30-year operation phase. That cost has since gone up by roughly $500 million.
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