The Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway (the Parkway) is the access road portion of a new end-toend
border transportation system between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan; Canada’s
busiest land border crossing, which carries nearly one third of the trade between Canada and
the United States. Identified under the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC)
Environmental Assessment (EA), the project is one of the largest infrastructure undertakings in
Ontario to date, and was approved under both the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act and
the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Located in the municipalities of Tecumseh, LaSalle
and Windsor, the Parkway is a once-in-a-generation undertaking.
The Provincial EA determined that much of the Parkway would need to remain in the
existing highly urbanized corridor. The existing highway corridor which included 17 traffic
signals, was congested with a mix of local and international traffic. The congestion resulted in
localized air quality impacts, diversion of trucks to local streets, and had a negative economic
impact due to border delays.
The $1.4 billion Parkway includes an 11 km extension of the six lane Highway 401 and a
parallel service road for local traffic. The Parkway includes 11 tunnels covering 1.8 km which
provide linkages to adjacent communities and a wildlife crossing, 20 km of recreational trails
that provide new community connections and more than 120 ha of greenspace. The Parkway is
the first Ontario transportation project to be delivered by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO)
and Infrastructure Ontario using an alternative financing and procurement approach. Appendix
A portrays a photographic progression of the Parkway’s construction.
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