, opened in 2007 Windsor is the western terminus of both
Highway 401, Canada's busiest highway, and
Via Rail's
Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. Windsor's Via station is the nation's seventh-busiest in terms of passenger volumes. Windsor has a municipal highway, E.C. Row Expressway, running east–west through the city. Consisting of of highway and nine interchanges, the expressway is the fastest way for commuters to travel across the city. E.C. Row Expressway is mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records as the shortest freeway, which took the longest time to build, as it took more than 15 years to complete. The expressway stretches from Windsor's far west end at
Ojibway Parkway east to Banwell Road on the city's border with Tecumseh. The majority of development in the city of Windsor and the neighbouring town of Tecumseh stretches along the water instead of inland. As a result, there is a lack of major east–west arteries compared to north–south arteries. Only
Riverside Drive, Wyandotte Street,
Tecumseh Road, County Road 42/Cabana Road and the E.C. Row Expressway serve the almost from the west end of Windsor eastward. All of these roads, especially the E.C. Row Expressway, are burdened with east–west commuter traffic from the development in the city's east end and suburbs further east. There are eight north–south roads interchanging with the expressway:
Huron Church Road, Dominion Boulevard, Dougall Avenue,
Howard Avenue,
Walker Road, Central Avenue, Jefferson Boulevard, and Lauzon Parkway. Traffic backups on some of these north–south roads at the E.C. Row Expressway are common, mainly at Dominion, Dougall, Howard, and Walker as the land south of the expressway and east of Walker is occupied by Windsor airport and there has been little development. Windsor's many rail crossings intersect with these north–south thoroughfares. In October 2008, the Province of Ontario completed a grade separation at Walker Road and the CP Rail line. Another grade separation was completed in November 2010 at Howard Avenue and the CP Rail line. In both cases, the road travels under the rail line, and both have below-grade intersections with an east–west street. These were planned as parts of the "Let's Get Windsor-Essex Moving" project funded by the Province of Ontario to improve local transportation infrastructure. Windsor is connected to
Essex and
Leamington via
Highway 3 and is well connected to the other municipalities and communities throughout Essex County via the
county road network. Nearly 20,000 vehicles travel on Highway 3 in Essex County daily. It is the main route to work for many Leamington, Kingsville and Essex residents. Windsor is linked to the United States by the
Ambassador Bridge, the
Detroit–Windsor Tunnel, a
Canadian Pacific Railway tunnel, and the
Detroit–Windsor Truck Ferry. In terms of goods volume, the Ambassador Bridge is North America's No. 1 international border crossing: 27% of all trade between Canada and the United States crosses at the Ambassador Bridge. Windsor has a
bike trail network including the (
Riverfront Bike Trail,
Ganatchio Bike Trail, and
Little River Extension). They have become a blend of parkland and transportation, as people use the trails to commute to work or across downtown on their bicycles.
Airports The city is served by
Windsor International Airport, a regional airport with scheduled commuter air service by
Air Canada Express,
Porter Airlines, and
WestJet, along with heavy
general aviation traffic. The majority of destinations are within Ontario except seasonal routes to
Calgary, Alberta and a variety of
Caribbean destinations. The
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is approximately across the border in
Romulus, Michigan and is the airport of choice for many Windsor residents as it has regular flights to a larger variety of destinations than Windsor Airport. Shuttle buses and cars are within driving distance to larger airports like
London International Airport,
John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport and to Canada's busiest airport and international hub
Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Waterways The Port of Windsor, which covers of shoreline along the Detroit River, is part of the
Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence Seaway System. Accessible to both
Lake freighters and ocean-going vessels, the port is the third largest Canadian Great Lakes port in terms of shipments behind only
Hamilton and
Thunder Bay. Cargos include a wide range of products such as aggregates, salt, grain, fluorspar, lumber, steel, petroleum, vehicles and heavy lift equipment.
Transit Bus A
public transport bus service is provided by
Transit Windsor. The
Windsor International Transit Terminal, opened in 2007, is Transit Windsor's hub; intercity buses from
Toronto,
London, and
Detroit also stop here.
Rail Windsor has a long history with rail travel in both passenger service and freight due to the
Michigan Central Railway Tunnel.
Intercity passenger railway service is provided by
Via Rail throughout the region via the
Windsor Railway Station. The region also used to have a second station, the
Windsor Michigan Central Railroad Depot before it was destroyed in a fire which historically served the
Canada Southern Railway,
New York Central Railroad and
Amtrak.
Bridges to Detroit A major and controversial issue is the amount of traffic to and from the Ambassador Bridge. The number of vehicles crossing the bridge has doubled since 1990. However, the total volume of traffic has been declining since the
September 11 attacks. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is a major bi-national infrastructure project under construction that is intended to improve the movement of people and goods between Canada and the United States at one of the busiest commercial border crossings. Access to the Ambassador Bridge is via two municipal roads:
Huron Church Road and
Wyandotte Street. A large portion of the traffic consists of tractor-trailers. There have been, at times, a wall of trucks up to long on
Huron Church Road. This road cuts through the city's west end, and the trucks are the source of many complaints about noise, pollution and pedestrian hazards. In 2003, a single mother of three, Jacqueline Bouchard, was struck and killed by a truck at the corner of Huron Church and Girardot Avenue in front of
Assumption College Catholic High School, a tragedy argued to be due to a lack of practical safety precautions. Windsor City Council hired traffic consultant
Sam Schwartz to produce a proposal for a solution to this traffic problem. City councillors overwhelmingly endorsed the proposal and it was presented to the federal government as a "Made in Windsor" solution. Not all of the surrounding residents supported the plan. One problem with the plan is the proposed road would cut through protected green spaces such as the Ojibway Prairie Reserve. In 2005, the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC—a joint Canadian-American committee studying the options for expanding the border crossing) announced its preferred option was to extend
Highway 401 directly westward to a new bridge spanning the Detroit River and interchange with
Interstate 75 somewhere between the existing Ambassador Bridge span and
Wyandotte. On April 9, 2010, the City of Windsor, along with local cabinet ministers Dwight Duncan and Sandra Pupatello of the Province of Ontario, announced a final decision had been made in the plans to construct the Windsor-Essex Parkway, the new Highway 401 extension leading to a future crossing. The announcement indicated the project would be the most expensive road ever built in Canada on a per kilometre basis. It included commitments to enhance green space design through the use of berming, landscaping, and other aesthetic treatments. As part of negotiations with the City of Windsor (who threatened legal action in pursuit of more tunnelling and green space of the route), the province agreed to additional funding to infrastructure projects in Windsor-Essex; this includes money for the improvement of the plaza of the Canadian side of the Windsor-Detroit tunnel, the widening and other improvements of Walker Rd between Division Rd and E.C. Row Expressway, and the environmental assessment and preliminary design of a future extension of Lauzon Parkway to Highway 401. ==Twin towns – sister cities==