They built a parallel bridge alongside the original Bluewater Bridge at Sarnia/Port Huron. I know of no plans to add a second bridge over the Straits of Mackinac.
Of course for truck shipments going anyplace aside from Windsor and the burgs between in an London, more sensible truck drivers use the Blue Water bridge anyway. It easily shaves an entire hour off my frequent trips between the Detroit metro area and Oakville, just west of Chicago. It’s also cheaper to cross.
There are plans to build a second crossing between Detroit and Windsor to augment the Ambassador Bridge. I’d advise you not to hold your breath.
If Big Mac comes down, how are the yoopers going to live without the cash flow from the trolls? In a lot of those UP towns, the only guy in town that has a job works in the unemployment office.
:rolleyes: Granted, we’re not a huge economic area, but things are hardly that grim.
Here is the possible reason
The Ambassador is obviously a much better target, but I’m not sure how feasible it would be to bring down. Best you could do would be a truck bomb, and I’m not sure how much damage that would really do. Course, that applies to the Mackinac too.
On TV, no one can hear you spell.
I’m a tyro in such matters, but would it have been a good idea to keep tabs on these guys and see what they were really up to? Maybe they actually were just trying to make a buck.
The Mackinac Bridge is scheduled to undergo a large and costly renovation. It opened in 1957 and after almost 50 years it requires some extensive upgrades. There is no plan to replace the bridge or build a parrallel bridge.
The History Channel did a segment on Modern Marvels about the Mackinac Bridge. It is truly an engineering wonder. It was the first large bridge that was designed using computers. Of course, the available computer power at the time is less than what is in TI-83 calculator. Nonetheless, the speed and efficiency in which the bridge was built was amazing. Construction was shut down during the winter months. It was built using privately financed bonds totalling $100 million (not billion) because the state was unwilling to back the bonds.
If the bridge were to suddenly disappear there would be a severe shortage of snowmobile parts that would result in starvation and economic disaster for the Yoopers. 
Nah, Polaris and Arctic Cat are in Minnesota and Bombardier is in Canada. It’d be no big deal. 
Suspension bridges are difficult to bring down. You need to take out one of the major cables, or one of the towers. Both of these things are very difficult. Imagine trying to cut through this with tnt. You have to have a large amount of explosives, and a way to contain the blast so the force destroys the bridge element you are targeting. This would take time to deploy (a drive up truck bomb wouldn’t do, you would have to rig the charge). Much easier to take out a few of the approach sections, but that could be easily rebuilt. Despite what the government thinks, suspension bridges are **not **an attractive target for terrorists.
I do wonder what the effect of ramming a large boat (maybe with a cargo hold full of fuel oil) into a tower might be. It seems like that would be an attack that would be hard to stop. Once you detected the ship was seriously off course, it would be kind of late…
Okay, let’s get the story straight, at least.
The “feds” didn’t have anything to do with the “terrorist” angle. That was entirely the work of the local law enforcement establishment, which obviously determined that two middle eastern men with 1000 cell phones MUST be up to something terroristic. The “feds” have looked at the situation and advised that they cannot establish any connection between the men and any sort of known terrorist plot or organization. Frankly, the statement from the “feds” is as close to saying, “You local yokels blew it” as you are likely to get publicly.
In addition to the substantial traffic through the Straits by ship, there is substantial commercial truck traffic even at that end of I-75. You’d be surprised how many trucks you see on that road up by the bridge. Of course, you wouldn’t have to “drive around Lake Michigan” (or Lake Huron either, for that matter); you’d simply do what they did BEFORE there was a bridge. Ferries are still used in some places that don’t have bridges. :eek:
I’m talking from memory so I’m not providing detailed facts:
The majority (something like 3/4) of the mass of the Mackinac Bridge is below water level. Look at a picture and you see that both towers rise out of the water. A HUGE amount of concrete was poured to support those towers. Hitting those towers with a ship, even a cargo ship, would probably just produce a nasty shipwreck.
Thanks for the correction.
Although, I must say, hysterical overreaction, like shit, holls down hill.
Agreed. As to the OP, having been across the Mackinac a few times, it gets a lot of traffic, but strategic? Hardly. Ferry service could be provided for critical cargo and the traveling public until the bridge could be repaired/replaced. In the unlikely event they could actually do it, which I doubt very much.
Furthermore, economies on each side would realign to the new reality quickly. Inconvenience is the word we are looking for here. Of course it would be a big inconvenience if we all had to go through a checkpoint before crossing any major bridge. Ask anyone from the Bay Area. Pray it doesn’t come to that.
As others have mentioned, why not something easy like a sporting event or a mall? Lotsa people to kill, no security to speak of, and it hits us where we live, our bread and circuses.
As long as we aren’t subjected to a white fish boil the invasion is still on. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.
Heh, just coming home yesterday from Ontario we took the ferry (not at Macinack). It was a 15 minute wait versus two friggin’ hours at the Blue Water Bridge. So, yeah, ferries are doable.