A monumental day for those who were the first to cross the Gordie Howe International Bridge.
The $6.4-billion span opened to traffic on Monday morning, with members of the Howe family being the first to cross, followed by the first commercial truck from Onfreight Logistics in Tecumseh carrying auto parts to Michigan.
After that, the bridge opened officially to the public, with Bob and Karen Hunt being the first couple to cross at 10:18 a.m.
Construction on the bridge began in 2018, and the new international crossing between Windsor and Detroit is expected to ease congestion at the Ambassador Bridge while also improving the flow of cross-border trade between Canada and the United States.
Jim Pereira, asset and fleet safety manager and company driver at Onfreight Logistics, was emotional speaking about the experience.
“I’m thinking about my grandkids because I was told they can say I was the first one to cross.... it’s pretty awesome. I don’t know what else to say. It was an amazing experience; the bridge is beautiful.”
Pereira says it’s a beautiful bridge that will be incredible for the company to use.
“It’s incredible this bridge, it’s so different than what we’re accustomed to, there’s so many lanes, it’s wide open, it’s fast, it’s beautiful, the scenery is incredible. You get a sense that the flow is just going to go incredibly easy; you can save a lot of time for truck traffic.”
Steve Ondejko, President of Onfreight Logistics, says this new crossing will be more efficient as there will be seven fewer traffic lights to get to the bridge on the Canadian side.
“This is certainly a treasured moment for our company. We’ve been in business 30 years, and we’re in business on both sides of the border, so we have an operation in the U.S. and Canada. So for us, this is a culmination of planning, we’ve been planning for a number of years, and we’re excited about the opportunity to grow that opportunity between the two countries.”
Bob and Karen Hunt were the first ones to cross. Bob says it was incredible.
“By the time we got up to the middle of the bridge and that, I’m going ‘yahoo! I can’t believe this, I can’t believe we’re the first ones over’, and it was really exciting, really, really nice to see that bridge. It’s nice to see it open finally... beautiful, and just a great experience.”
He says the woman at the toll booth said they were the first ones through, and gave them their Breakaway receipt with the timestamp.
“I have that on the receipt, and I’m going to frame that and that will be something that will go down in the family. I feel that’s great to be the first one across.”
Karen says they were at the bridge at 8:30 a.m. and waited patiently for the barriers to be moved.
“We were actually up at 4 this morning and thinking of going over just to sit and see what happens, and then we changed our minds, we waited until about 8 o’clock, I think, and then we just said ‘let’s just go’. So we were really pleased that we were the first ones going over.”
The new bridge opened after construction delays and a financial demand from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Canada agreed to make some adjustments concerning the sharing of toll revenues with the U.S. before the bridge’s opening.
The Gordie Howe’s multi-use path is set to open to pedestrians and cyclists on August 5.