Talk:Gordie Howe International Bridge/Archive 1

Article Naming
Back to the point: DRIC is what it is referred to by the local newspapers, and most people on both sides of the border in the area. It is also the name given by the group that is trying to get this done, namely the US, Canadian, Ontario and Michigan Government agencies involved. DRIC Site. NITC is not in common use, or often seen (relatively) in any media in the region (On either side of the border, aka Windsor Star, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, CHWI, CBET, WDIV, WWJ, FOX2, WXYD, CW50, etc...). The article name is fine the way it is.--UnQuébécois (talk) 00:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Seconded -  ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  τ ¢  00:36, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As the original proposer above, that makes three of us in agreement.  Imzadi 1979  →   00:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Article name
It should remain as "Detroit River International Crossing" until such time as it is built and a permanent name is given to the proposed structure. Yes, the "New International Trade Crossing" name is in use, but according to Google search results, that name only returns 79,700 results compared to the 190,000 results for the current title. Searching for the abbreviation "DRIC" returns 1,190,000 results while "NITC" only had 56,600 results once limited to the bridge. (There are a number of organizations that have NITC as their abbreviations.)  Imzadi 1979  →   19:42, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * How many results for "bridge to nowhere"? I have to agree; until the new name gains wider traction the title shouldn't change. -  ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  τ ¢  21:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Likely one hit for bridge to nowhere, on Matty Moroun's personal site. Ontario Highway 401 is, after all, the busiest street in Canada and links its two largest towns. --66.102.83.61 (talk) 20:36, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The 'bridge to nowhere' term was also used for Pier 19, part of Moroun's stub of an attempt to build a second span to his existing bridge with authorisation from nobody in either country. WP:RS here: "Pier 19 (also called "The Bridge to Nowhere"), which looms over Fort Street. The pier was built as the cornerstone of Moroun's planned second span to the Ambassador Bridge — which puts him at odds with Gov. Rick Snyder's plan for a publicly backed bridge. But according to MDOT, the location of the pier is in line with a road that would move truck traffic from Fort Street and directly to the freeways." 66.102.83.61 (talk) 02:59, 9 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Highway 401 is not a street, it stops at the Ontario/Quebec border, you must continue on Quebec "interstate" highway 20 to get to Montréal. Just FYI.--UnQuébécois (talk) 20:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * 401/20 is the same road in all but name (unlike the US Interstate or the federally-numbered "US" roads it replaced, Canadian highways do not preserve the same numbering scheme across provincial boundaries) and « l'autoroute vingt » doesn't meet US-Interstate standard as it is indeed a city street in much of « le West Island » of Montréal. Ontario *had* a highway 20, but it's the county road from Hamilton to Niagara with no connection to its Québécois namesake. —  66.102.83.61 (talk) 22:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The point being, the 401 is a provincial highway, not a national highway, and ends at the Ontario border. Highway 20 is a highway, and not a street. Street is the equivalent of « rue », not « route » which is highway in English. Even on Ile-Perôt, with the traffic lights, « L'Autoroute 20 » is still considered a « route », not a « rue ». An « Autoroute » is a limited access highway, which are what the US interstates are. I used "interstate" (in quotes specifically) as a comparison not a strict definition.
 * The proper term to use is "expressway." Steelbeard1 (talk) 18:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This is not a soapbox. -  ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ  τ ¢  18:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I see no WP:SOAPBOX in the article, simply a clarification of terms/translations. And yes "expressway" is also another term used for limited access highways in some places.--UnQuébécois (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * A couple of points, and we're really straying off topic here. 1) "Bridge to nowhere" has more relevance in the press to certain bridges in Alaska proposed to connect sparsely populated islands to the mainland. 2) "Interstate", with a capital "I" is a short-hand name for a specific system of highways, while "interstate" with a lower case "i" and its Canadian analog "interprovincial" just means something crosses state or provincial boundaries. Highway 401 isn't interprovincial, nor is Autoroute 20. And even if they were, they aren't truly streets, even if part of the A20 is on a city street, it's still a highway by fiat. And none of this matters to the previous discussion about what to title the article. So I'm collapsing this thread and inviting the participants here to bring their commentary back to the subject at hand: what to title the article.  Imzadi 1979  →   22:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Spoken version request
I think it's very premature to record a version of this article. There is no final approval set yet that the bridge will even be built at this time. Too many details about this proposed structure are still in flux yet, even if Ontario and Canada are building a parkway to connect Highway 401 to the bridge, Michigan has not approved construction. Without Michigan on board, it will not be built.  Imzadi 1979  →   02:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Michigan is now on board. 66.102.83.61 (talk) 15:49, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Michigan's governor is on board, the rest of the state government is not, and until the bridge is built, a spoken version of the article is premature. The article is far from complete (what kind of bridge will they build, a suspension bridge like the Ambassador or a cable-stayed bridge like the Veterans' Glass City Skyway in Toledo, or something else? When does construct start and end? etc.) Too many unincluded, too many unknowable details yet for someone to expend the effort to record a version of this article.  Imzadi 1979  →   18:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

New International Trade Crossing.
Now that the State Department has approved the project using the New International Trade Crossing name, that should be the name of this article. Should this article be called the "New International Trade Crossing."
 * Support as everyone, except those editors here who insist on the old DRIC name, in the media and in government circles are using the NITC name. Steelbeard1 (talk) 11:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Look at for proof. It shows 2,100 results for the NITC name.  But only 131 results for the old DRIC name as shown at  (talk) 11:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose—when I googled it using your search terms, I got 2,100 hits for NITC name and 362,00 for the DRIC name. Some in the news media are using both names at the moment. Honestly, I could care less, but once the page move was reverted, it should have been left alone until consensus was formed to move it. Page-move warring is just as bad, if not worse, than edit warring.  Imzadi 1979  →   12:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Those links are misleading because regular Google searches include old and outdated material. I am referring to 'news', not 'web' because 'web' searches contain old material. In this instance, 'news' is what matters because it refers to more current material on the web. Once again, the 'news' searches show about 2,100 results for NITC, but only 131 for DIRC.  So what is the official name of the project anyway? When the State Department approved the project last week, it was under the NITC name. Look at the link yourself at .  The State Department DID NOT approve the DRIC, it approved the NITC. Steelbeard1 (talk) 13:03, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - It doesn't matter much what this article's title is, because it will inevitably be changed yet again when there is a proper name chosen some time during its construction phase. My personal opinion is that the NITC name is terribly generic (it could be located anywhere), but it has some authoritative support and it's not the final name of the bridge.   PK  T (alk)  14:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Right now, it is a project as construction has not yet begun on the bridge.  Once a name is chosen for the bridge, then we could rename the article to that of the bridge's name. Steelbeard1 (talk) 16:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I'd suspect that this fails WP:COMMONNAME as saying "new international trade crossing" doesn't make it obvious to anyone not already closely following this saga that the article is about a future bridge to Détroit. The term is a neologism and endlessly renaming infrastructure that hasn't even been completed yet (not just the bridge, but the Windsor-Essex Parkway itself) is only adding confusion. K7L (talk) 01:36, 16 April 2013
 * The reason why the DRIC name was abandoned is because it is too similar to the Detroit International Bridge Company, abbreviated DIBC, which owns the rival Ambassador Bridge. Steelbeard1 (talk) 03:43, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Bridge design type ?
Is it going to be a traditional suspension bridge or a cable-stayed bridge ? Also, will it have suspension cables on each side of the roadway or one set down the middle ? StuRat (talk) 17:15, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

merge...
A year ago someone placed merge tags here, and on Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority. However, they forgot to explain why they thought this was a good idea.

Sadly, one sees this kind of naive merge suggestion here pretty often.

The most important reason this is a bad idea is that the Bridge authority and the Bridge itself are two separate topics. There are a lot of wikipedia contributors who are happy to see related articles merged into larger omnibus articles that cover multiple topics.


 * 1) Navigation -- it is easier to navigate to somewhere else by clicking on a wikilink, than to either scroll around a big article, or to use one's browser's search function.  And it is certainly easier to return to where you were by clicking on one's browser's "back" button.  Don't make me use my search function!  I am probably already using it for something else!
 * 2) Watchlist -- when related topics are allowed to each keep their own separate article readers can choose whether or not to have that topic on their watchlist.  However, one they are merged, that choice is stripped from us.  If we force a merge on the articles readers are guaranteed lots of false positives -- hits on their watchlist that are really for one of the other topics shoehorned into the article -- one of the topics they are NOT interested in.
 * 3) Off topic -- when multiple distinct topics, that are merely related, are shoehorned into a single article, there is going to be a constant danger that good faith contributors will strike the merged material, as off-topic.
 * 4) What links here -- when a reader is trying to use the wikipedia, and they have trouble finding the information they want, they can click the "what links here" button.  The value of this technique is eroded when articles no longer cover just a single topic.

This urge to merge is often quite disrespectful to readers. We have a system that can allow readers to traverse the universe of human knowledge in whatever order works best for them. When bossy mergists force related distinct topics to be merged into big clumsy omnibus multiple topic articles, they force readers to access that material in the order they decided was the only sensible order.

In this particular case, we could have readers who are interested in public administration, in oversight commissions for all kinds of projects, who aren't interested in bridges at all. Those readers shouldn't be forced to see read material related to the details of bridge operation. Alternatively, there are likely another population of readers, who are only interested in the details of bridge operation, and couldn't care less about how the government oversees the structure. Geo Swan (talk) 04:56, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Don't merge - the Authority and the bridge are two different things.  PK  T (alk)  12:40, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The Authority and the bridge are two different subjects. Steelbeard1 (talk) 22:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

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