Transit Windsor is leaving the Tunnel Bus parked while the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel is shut down for 10 days next month.
Transit Windsor Executive Director Pat Delmore says every option was considered to keep the Tunnel Bus running during the closure, but there was no feasible solution.
The multi-million-dollar maintenance project will also see renovations carried out in the evenings after the closure through to June 2018.
The evening closures will be carried out Sunday to Thursday and begin at 8pm and end at 5:30am the next day.
Delmore will be monitoring the impact of losing Tunnel Bus service with a number of big events in Detroit scheduled during the tunnel closure.
He says city council will get a report on his findings.
"Keep in mind that, we won't be paying all these additional drivers that we require for all these events as well. We will have some drivers that are assigned to the tunnel, they'll be re-assigned other work within the hours that they normally work."
"There's I think one hockey game, two basketball games, there's three concerts and a couple of large concerts as well as a football game as well — a number of riders will be impact by that."
Pat Delmore, executive director of Transit Windsor, attends the regular meeting of the Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee on September 27, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
A suggestion by committee member and councillor Chris Holt of a potential cross-border ferry will be investigated by Delmore, but a solution doesn't look promising.
"It certainly has been a very long historical discussion and we can certainly look into what options there will be, but I think they're pretty limited."
Delmore says to deal with the evening closures lasting until June 2018, the Tunnel Bus will continue to operate until 7pm and return by using the Ambassador Bridge.
Delmore says because there is only bus accessibilty for customs on the Canadian side of the Ambassdor Bridge, the Tunnel Bus can't continue to use the bridge while the tunnel is closed.
The renovations are being carried out to replace the aging ceiling of the tunnel.