‘It’s a lifeline’ — fight to save historic Windsor-Detroit tunnel bus

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Hardworking commuters, drunk baseball fans, and Motown legend Diana Ross — they’ve all taken that time-honoured bus ride below the Detroit River.

Of all the ways Windsor is tied to its big American Motor City neighbour, one of the most unique is a near-century-old service known as the tunnel bus.

It is the only international public bus service in North America. And it runs through the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel, the world’s only underwater border crossing for passenger cars.

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It’s also the reason Arran Christie moved to Windsor — a decision she’s now having second thoughts about.

The Windsor-Detroit tunnel bus may have reached the end of the road, a victim of cost-cutting, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, and increased bus driver sick days.

“I really love Windsor, but it was the tunnel bus that put it on the map for me” said Christie, 20, who moved here from New Brunswick last summer.

“It’s everything. I know it feels very all-or-nothing to say that. But I have been thinking recently, seeing all the news about it getting cut, what did I move here for?

“Same goes for my friends. A lot of them also chose Windsor because of the tunnel bus.”

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, whose city operates and pays for the tunnel bus, vetoed a council decision to save the celebrated service. It was his first-ever veto under Ontario’s strong mayor legislation.

With one councillor calling it an “iconic” and “historic piece of Windsor,” city council voted on Jan. 27 to keep the tunnel bus alive and double the one-way fare to $20. Dilkens said the same day he was considering the veto.

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Then, on Feb. 1, Trump signed an order to execute punishing 25 per cent tariffs against Canada.

After that, Dilkens officially announced his veto, stating the tunnel bus “acts as an economic development engine for the City of Detroit” at a time when Canada is under “economic attack.”

“What I said regarding my veto of the tunnel bus amendment is that I do not want to subsidize people to go and spend money in a country that is attacking us economically,” Dilkens reiterated to the Star this week in an email.

But even before Trump signed his tariff orders, Dilkens wanted to stop the bus. He sparked a community backlash earlier in January when he proposed a budget eliminating the service.

Dilkens said his reason for killing the bus was a 2022 change to Canada’s Labour Code. It gives federal employees 10 days of paid annual medical leave on top of existing benefits.

Since a few operators drive buses that cross the international border, all of Transit Windsor’s roughly 300 employees fall under federal labour laws.

Dilkens said the added sick days mean the tunnel bus, which used to break even, now costs the city around $1.4 million annually.

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“The City of Windsor does not fund transit costs to any other jurisdiction within Essex County,” Dilkens said in his email to the Star. “The municipalities that receive those services pay the full cost.

“It’s a little rich to think Windsor taxpayers should subsidize service to another country when we don’t do the same locally.”

But there is a sliver of hope for those who ride the bus.

City council is expected to meet next week to discuss a possible veto override. The meeting date hasn’t been confirmed, but the deadline to do it is Friday, Feb. 21.

The union representing Transit Windsor employees said cancelling the bus won’t change the bottom line for 2025.

“The big story has been the veto,” Manny Sforza, vice-president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 616, told the Windsor Star.

He also argued that in such an unprecedented landscape of political, cultural, and economic volatility, there’s no need to create more barriers between Canadians and Americans.

“We should be building bridges, not tearing them down,” said Sforza. “Yes, there should be action taken against Trump and his government. But we’ve got to remember many people in the community rely on the tunnel bus and would continue to use it.”

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There’s no doubt, as Dilkens suggested, that besides workers crossing back and forth, people use the international bus as a passport to parties and main events.

The buses are often packed through the Detroit Tigers season, especially in early April for the beloved home opener that turns Detroit into a citywide tailgate party.

Last weekend, two Transit Windsor special event buses carried Detroit Red Wings fans from Windsor’s downtown bus station to Little Caesars Arena (LCA).

On Saturday, buses will do the same for the AMA Supercross Championship at Ford Field, and on Thursday for the Justin Timberlake concert at LCA.

But despite the mayor’s concerns about people spending money in Detroit, many Canadians don’t take the bus to hit the latest dining or high fashion hotspots — though they say it adds to Windsor’s quality of life.

“I don’t go to Detroit to shop,” said Samantha Bell, 35, a University of Windsor program coordinator. “I go there to see my long-term boyfriend. I travel purely to see family and friends.”

Without a driver’s licence, she said the tunnel bus is her only option.

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“It’s nerve-wracking,” said Bell. “I’m willing to absorb the cost, to go up to $20. To have it gone completely, I think would be a huge mistake.

“People are so focused on, ‘We don’t want to go to Detroit to spend money.’ But there are other reasons people go. I think the human aspect of the whole thing is getting lost.”

It’s true that even now, the tunnel and its bus remain symbols of the once seemingly invincible bond between Windsorites and Detroiters, now frayed by Trump’s insults, threats, and desire to annex Canada.

While the calls echo across Canada for the boycott of American businesses, thousands of Windsorites still work for some of those companies and institutions.

Their livelihoods are earned at Detroit hospitals, auto companies, and engineering firms. They go to school in Michigan. They have family there.

David Faulkner sits beside them every day. He’s been riding the tunnel bus for more than 50 years.

As a kid, he went to Detroit with his mom to shop in the legendary Hudson’s department store that used to sit at Woodward and Gratiot avenues.

“I still think it was the finest department store I’ve ever come across,” said Faulkner, 66.

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He also remembers the electric thrill he felt as a teenager, freed from parental shackles, taking the bus with friends.

“We’d go over to buy Converse All-Stars — something of a big deal amongst your millennial types these days — for the low, low price of $10.95,” said Faulkner. “It was a big deal to go.

“As a young teenager, the idea of learning about another culture in the United States, I don’t know if you can put a value on that.”

For the last 30 years, he has used the bus to make a living. As a professional pianist, he spends most of his time rehearsing and performing in Detroit.

“It’s a lifeline for me,” said Faulkner, who doesn’t own a car. “It’s part of my life.”

He has already glimpsed what life could be like without the tunnel bus. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Transit Windsor, he had to take cabs to Detroit. The roundtrip cost about $200.

“I’m going to be in serious trouble.”

Faulker isn’t the only musician to kick off a music career with a tunnel bus ride.

On July 4, 1960, still calling themselves the Primettes, a teenaged Diana Ross and her friends were among thousands of Detroiters who rode a bus to Canada for the annual International Freedom Festival.

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Unlike most, they weren’t there to watch. The future Supremes won the festival’s talent contest, catching the ear of Motown Records bigwigs and giving them the momentum to start making a record — launching international success.

For most, the ride is less revolutionary, but no less important. Arran Christie considers it a crucial connection to her best friend in Michigan. It’s the reason she moved to Windsor.

“I wanted to be near my best friend,” said Christie, a second-year UWindsor student. “I knew moving I probably wasn’t going to have a car, so I didn’t know if it was going to be the right decision. But it was my mother who said, the tunnel bus is there. You can just take it whenever.”

It’s been that way for almost a century.

Construction on the tunnel began in June 1928. According to Windsor Public Library archives, proponents had floated the idea for years. But the project was delayed by lack of funding and a prevailing fear that anyone who used it would die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

The 1.6-kilometre marvel of engineering, which cost $25 million to build, opened on Nov. 3, 1930. U.S. President Herbert Hoover turned a “golden key” at the White House that set off bells in Windsor and Detroit, marking the tunnel’s official opening.

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The first tunnel bus passengers arrived in Detroit on Nov. 4, 1930. The Detroit and Canada Tunnel Company, as it was then known, housed the buses in a garage next to the mouth of the tunnel where Windsor’s duty-free store now sits.

“The tunnel buses never came on city streets in Windsor, so they were never licensed for the province,” said Windsor rail and transit historian Bernie Drouillard. “They only had to carry a Michigan licence. They went from the Canadian side of the tunnel over to Detroit and they zigzagged through downtown.”

The City of Windsor, which owns the Canadian side of the tunnel, assumed control of the bus service on Feb. 1, 1982. At the time, said Drouillard, there were about 700,000 riders a year.

“I can tell you, that’s not what they’re carrying today,” he said. “The pandemic didn’t help, put it that way. It really hurt because a lot of people found other ways to get across.”

Transit Windsor collected about 84,000 fares in 2024, or 175 on an average weekday. Before the pandemic hit, in 2019, the bus ferried 203,658 passengers.

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While ridership is far from what it was in the days before global tensions, American boycotts, and COVID-19, those who ride the bus believe it’s still as important as ever.

“I think taking it away is just a huge mistake,” said Bell. “It’s about the connection of people. It’s a necessity.”

TRANSIT PIONEERS

Hosting North America’s only public transit service through the world’s only underwater international automobile crossing is not Windsor’s single contribution to the hallowed annals of public transit history.

Canada’s first electric street railway began operation in Windsor on May 28, 1886, according to Transit Windsor.

In 1891, Windsor became the first Canadian city with an all-electric transit system. In 1922, Canada’s first trolley bus started rolling in Walkerville.

twilhelm@postmedia.com

Two-part series

This is the second of a two-part Windsor Star series, Bus Stopped, looking at the likely end of the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel Bus. Part 1 examined issues triggering the bus’s potential demise. Part 2 explores the historical significance of North America’s only international public bus service.

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