Improvements are coming to Sarnia’s Blue Water Bridge this spring

The Blue Water Bridge crosses the St. Clair River between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. PHOTO: David Sullivan via Flickr

OTTAWA—Improvements are being made to one of Canada’s busiest border crossings.

The Federal Bridge Corporation Ltd. (FBCL) is proceeding with the next phase of work on the Blue Water Bridge Master Plan at its bridge plaza in Point Edward, Ont.—a suburb of Sarnia.

The Blue Water Bridge connects Sarnia, Ont. with Port Huron Mich., and is Canada’s second-busiest crossing for commercial traffic, with over 1.5 million trucks and $42.2 billion in road trade annually.

FBCL confirmed that it is initiating a series of projects over the next few years to improve the bridge plaza, including the construction of an emergency return road, the demolition of a vacant commercial building and related civil works.

The new emergency return road will provide safety and efficiency improvements for the bridge operations.

This connection is essential to provide unrestricted bridge access to emergency first responders, to ease the return of commercial and traffic vehicles to the U.S., to facilitate outbound inspections, to allow broker access for U.S. bound commercial vehicles and to improve the entry and exit of maintenance and delivery vehicles on the bridge plaza.

These projects will begin in spring 2017 and continue over the next few years. Each project’s scope and schedule will be announced at a later date, once the various design investigation activities—including excavation and associated archeological requirements—are completed.

FBCL is a crown corporation under the federal Ministry of Transport that has run operations on the Blue Water Bridge since 2015, when the bridge’s previous manager, Blue Water Bridge Authority, was amalgamated with FBCL.