Bridge relations reaching the boiling point in River Rouge

[mtburb]

Over two years after the accident of 2013, local residents still must deal with out-of-the-way detours in order to get into River Rouge and vice-versa. Portions of West Jefferson north of Coolidge have reached the point of becoming doomed to the point that a few businesses have even had no choice but to hang up the dreaded "going out of business" banner, all because of what they must deal with [[original):



As a result of a combination of this, the closure of the Fort Street Bridge for scheduled reconstruction and periodical closures of the Dix Bridge, I-75 has logically become the only logical available route from Detroit into the Downriver communities, as even SMART had to reroute it's Fort Street route via I-75. [[DDOT instead opted to end the Schaefer route just before the bridge on the River Rouge side.)

In two extreme examples, a graphic design business reported an 80% decline in earnings and a party store resorted into becoming a smaller Meijer just to survive. Even despite pretty much every remaining storefront displaying orange "fix the d[[I can't say that) bridge" signs, no signs of progress are visible.

There is some hope though-and that hope is in the new international crossing just a mile up Jefferson from the damaged bridge. Some are predicting that River Rouge would become the residence of many new workers that the new crossing would bring, but that most likely won't happen until the bridge is repaired.

How much longer can River Rouge and Delray be separated completely as long as the Jefferson Bridge remains as it is right now?

Take a drive up West Jefferson in northern River Rouge in 2013 with Google Street View.