Bridge to Nowhere Finally Goes Somewhere, Lawyers Furious
The Gordie Howe International Bridge is, by all engineering measures, essentially complete. The asphalt has cured. The lights work. A ribbon has been ordered. Officials say drivers could theoretically cross from Windsor to Detroit later this year, assuming they are willing to ignore approximately 14 years of accumulated litigation paperwork stacked at either end.
The fight, sources confirm, is going great. Lawyers on both sides of the border have invoiced enough hours to span the Detroit River twice. One Michigan billionaire is still suing about a competing bridge he owns, which Canadians are politely reminded not to mention at dinner parties. Ottawa, for its part, has discovered three new toll-revenue formulas, each more optimistic than the last.
The span itself, a 2.5 kilometre cable-stayed structure named after a hockey player famous for elbowing people in the face, seems unbothered. It just sits there, finished, waiting. Engineers describe it as "the most patient piece of infrastructure in North American history."
A senior federal official, asked when traffic might actually flow, offered the time-honoured Canadian response: soon, probably, unless something happens. Something, he clarified, almost always happens.
In the meantime, the bridge has become a popular subject for drone photographers, retirement-speech metaphors, and at least one Grade 7 civics project titled *How a Bill Becomes a Boondoggle*. The teacher gave it an A. The bridge gave it a honk.