Aaron Robinson: Battling Government, Detroit Bridge Raises National Issues

The Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit with Windsor, Ontario, is a hoary junkyard dog of old infrastructure. Built by private investors hoping to reap fortunes from its tolls, its 7500 feet of strung cable, suspended concrete, and latticework-steel stanchions opened to traffic on November 15, 1929, just three weeks after the Black Thursday stock-market crash launched the Great Depression. A year later, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel opened just four miles away with cheaper tolls. Within two years, what was then the world's longest suspension bridge was in default on its bonds. Painted kettle black, the Ambassador looked for decades like the bridge to Mordor. In the more optimistic 1950s, a brighter aluminum-colored paint was tested on one section, but soot from Detroit's billowing smokestacks quickly rendered the change pointless, so black it stayed for another 40-odd winters as rain and sleet rusted its trusses and river ice ground against its piers. READ MORE ›› from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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