DRTP to launch environmental assessment for rail tunnel

Source: Windsor Star - 09-05-25

The Detroit River Tunnel Partnership will launch its environmental assessment for a new Windsor-Detroit double-stack rail tunnel in the next few months, said a spokeswoman for the group.

“We are working diligently on both the U.S. and Canadian sides to get ourselves prepared to enter that process,” said Marge Byington, the Michigan-based director for the project.

DRTP is a partnership between CP Rail and Borealis, an investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension fund.

CP Rail has touted the need for a new rail tunnel to accommodate tall double-stacked rail cars that can’t pass through the existing tunnel. Byington guessed it would take about 12 to 18 months for DRTP to complete an environmental assessment.

“I think this entire region is just ripe for a multimodal international logistics centre,” she said. “There is pretty much nowhere else on the U.S.-Canada border with the potential with the (Windsor) airport, Metro Airport and rail facilities.”

But Federal Infrastructure and Transportation Minister John Baird indicated during a recent visit to Windsor how the government's focus in this region is first on completion of the new Detroit River bridge, plazas and border feeder roads, not rail improvements.

“We are not aware of any recent request to convert the rail tunnel to a double-stacked tube,” said Mark Butler, spokesman for Transport Canada.

It is expected a new rail tunnel would cost in the range of US$400 million.