The 20-year plus process of building a billion-dollar, binational bridge at the United States' and Canada's busiest border crossing is a slog of bureaucratic wrangling and civil engineering.
Normally, this sort of thing arouses little interest until the project completed and, even then, the only people who truly care are the politicians cutting ribbons and droning on about all the jobs they created.
It's not that the general public doesn't like a good new road, and certainly truck drivers will appreciate the promised efficiencies of the new bridge's expanded and modern Customs facilities. However, good roads and bridges are kind of a given in the U.S. and Canada.
When a particularly rough stretch of road is finally repaved, we're more likely to mutter "about time" than to celebrate. Canada's efforts to purchase land in Detroit for the bridge should be greeted with that same healthy apathy of a populace that expects these things to work properly.
The bridge fixes the traffic bottleneck at the border, and will be mostly financed through bonds expected to be paid back through toll collection.
Unfortunately, the bridge process escalated quickly from a quintessentially unsexy good government project to political soap opera, thanks in large part to the surprisingly effective opposition ginned up by Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun.
The Daily Show so perfectly captured the bridge frenzy in late 2012 with a report showing Al Madrigal (tongue firmly in his cheek) berating Canadian Counsel-General Roy Norton about the definition of zero cost, telling Moroun ally and "New Black Panther" Malik Shabazz that he works for The Man, and listening to a rather dim woman fret about Canadians buying up all our milk.
It's not, therefore, surprising that Canada's real estate plans are seen as a big deal.
However, given that Canadian government is paying for the project, it's not at all surprising to see them buy the property on which the bridge will land.
If anything, Canada's southwest Detroit land rush is a good time to draw a comparison between this project and another span connecting Michigan with Ontario – the Blue Water Bridge.
"When the original Blue Water Bridge was built, the roles were exactly opposite," Michigan Lieutenant-Governor Brian Calley told me in 2011. "It was Michigan who paid for everything, and waited for the bridge tolls to pay it back. This is just another chapter of Michigan and Canada being the long-term good friends that they are." The Blue Water Bridge's construction costs were repaid through a 30-year toll plan approved by the Michigan legislature. Just 23 years after the bridge opened, governor John Swainson cancelled the toll in 1962. The debt was fully paid.
Interesting side note: By killing the toll, Mr. Swainson eliminated his own father's job as a Blue Water Bridge toll collector. One can only imagine what hay modern political admen, like those who've worked for Mr. Moroun, would make of that bit of trivia.
If John Swainson laid off his own father, what will he do to your job? We can't take that chance.
But more importantly, the legacy of that first Blue Water Bridge project demonstrates how effectively and effortlessly the United States and Canada can work together on these projects, even if only one side is paying the freight.
The only thing remarkable about the planned Detroit-Windsor bridge is that we Michiganders have allowed a single interested party to make us believe this project was somehow remarkable or unusual.
Jeff Wattrick writes and blogs for Deadline Detroit. He is on Twitter at@Woodwardsfriend.