The most popular morning radio host in Windsor has strong feelings about the least popular bridge owner, that being Matthew Moroun.
Moroun, the Grosse Pointe billionaire whose vast holdings include the Ambassador Bridge, has been a dependably poor neighbor in our sister city to the south, appears to be the roadblock in the opening of the gleaming Gordie Howe International Bridge, and wrote a $1 million check to the guy who talks about making Canada the 51st state.
“If the Gordie Howe isn’t open and the tunnel is on fire,” Mike Kakuk of CKLW-AM (800) told his audience a few days ago, “I’ll still go through the tunnel.”
That’s a burn — and plenty of other people appear to be as steamed as he is.
Until 2025, the Ambassador was the most traveled international crossing in Michigan for cars and big trucks alike. Now it’s behind in each, passed by the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron for commercial vehicles and the Detroit Windsor Tunnel for everything else.
You can’t read the minds of throngs of drivers from both sides of the river, but you can read the tea leaves.
“People realize what’s going on,” said Kakuk, 50, off the air. His show with co-host Meg Roberts draws a staggering 30% share among Windsor stations, and from what he’s hearing and seeing, “They’ve got what we call ‘elbows up.'”
Raised in Windsor, Kakuk said, he’s had a ringside seat as Moroun’s company flexed its wealth, bought dozens of houses and let them rot in a neighborhood where it hoped to anchor a new bridge no one wanted, “and has never been a good community partner.”
“You see other rich people’s names on buildings, or a cancer center,” Kakuk said.
With Moroun, it’s mostly found on lawsuits. If the Gordie Howe Bridge and the tunnel are both closed, Kakuk will swim.
Putting the brakes on a bridge
Canadians are understandably less than fond of President Donald Trump, who belittles their country and calls their prime minister “governor.”
They already didn’t like Moroun, and then he made his hefty donation to a pro-Trump super PAC called MAGA Inc. in mid-January, was granted a meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick three weeks later, and presumably cackled as Lutnick dialed the Oval Office to pass along his message.
That month, Trump said the bridge wouldn’t open without Canadian concessions, ignoring that Canada had paid for the $4.7 billion, six-lane structure, that it had already been approved by the Michigan and U.S. governments, and that six years ago, he signed a North American trade package that he modestly called “the best and most important deal ever made” for the U.S.
“Realistically, the signs point to the delays with the bridge being political in nature,” said Tal Czudner, the diplomatic CEO of the Canadian half of the tunnel.
Also realistically, he said, some drivers are routing their business away from the Ambassador Bridge.
As recently as 2024, the six-lane Blue Water Bridge trailed the four-lane Ambassador by about 400,000 commercial vehicles. In 2025, it blew past Moroun’s property, with 2.13 million crossings to the Ambassador’s 1.86 million.
The two-lane tunnel moved 3.74 million cars in 2025, nearly 200,000 more than the Ambassador, and already has a 140,000-car advantage through May.
“A lot of that is from the bump we got from Moroun going to Washington,” Czudner said.
The new bridge, known widely in Windsor as “the Gordie,” hoped to be rolling by last Friday, June 12, but a ribbon-cutting announced a few days earlier was abruptly canceled.
With every week the Gordie sits empty, the Ambassador recoups Moroun’s $1 million donation simply by not having to share customers with the newcomer.
Czudner’s crossing will also take a hit when the Gordie finally comes online — but he’s looking forward to it.
Rebuilding a friendship
Czudner, 56, remains devoted to cross-border teamwork and affection, and he trusts location to keep the tunnel flourishing. The phrase he uses is “Hart to heart,” as in Hart Plaza to the heart of Windsor.
What’s missing is arm-in-arm, the way the U.S. and Canada used to march.
The fall production of the Windsor Light Music Theatre will be “Come From Away,” about the good citizens of Gander, Newfoundland, adopting 7,000 stranded airline passengers on and after Sept. 11. The same show played the Fisher Theatre last year.
“We have the longest undefended border in the world,” Czudner pointed out.
We fought two World Wars together. He, Kakuk and most of their fellow Windsorites root fiercely for not only the Red Wings, Tigers and Pistons, but also the Lions, even if they play by those strange American rules.
The government of Canada and the state of Michigan own the Gordie together, and Canada even fronted us our share of the construction costs. Who but a pal does that?
“The new bridge will be great for both communities,” Czudner said. “I don’t love losing some business, but I really think people are going to check out the pretty pony and then come back to the tunnel.”
Convenience wins out, usually. Grudges, though, can last like steel cables.
If the Ambassador doesn’t snap back, a radio host from Windsor can explain why.
Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New bridge isn’t open yet, but Ambassador traffic is already dropping
Reporting by Neal Rubin, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Neal Rubin, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
