Navigating the Detroit River requires keeping deep-draft Great Lakes freighters moving without impediment. The project team discarded suspension designs and arch concepts early in the development phase. Instead, engineers selected a cable-stayed profile with a single, unbroken 853-meter main span.
Building support piers directly in the riverbed was strictly off-limits. Sunken piers would constrict shipping lanes, heighten the risk of vessel collisions, and disturb sensitive river habitats. Consequently, the entire river-spanning load hangs suspended from two massive inverted-Y towers planted on dry land.
Each concrete tower reaches 220 meters (722 feet) into the skyline, matching the height of Detroit's Renaissance Center. From these uprights, 216 individual stay cables stretch outward in a harp arrangement, anchoring directly into the composite steel and concrete bridge deck. The cables feature high-density polyethylene sheathing to shed ice loads during subzero Midwestern winters. Beneath the road deck, aerodynamic fairings deflect cross-lake wind gusts, eliminating the harmonic oscillations that historically troubled older long-span designs.
