Windsor’s Sandwich Town is booming as Americans flood in with money and apologies - Toronto Star

The opening of new Gordie Howe International Bridge has transformed the community. 

Since the Gordie Howe Bridge’s multi-use path opened on Aug. 5, hundreds of American pedestrians and cyclists have descended onto Sandwich’s main street, breathing new life into a community that has suffered through decades of neglect.

Jim McKellar, clad in a jersey emblazoned with a red maple leaf, was waiting under the blazing August sun, eager to be among the first to cycle across the newly opened Gordie Howe International Bridge.

As the 74-year-old retired Ontario Hydro operator pedaled across the bridge, its white pylons and sweeping cables rising above the Detroit River, a stream of cyclists came coasting towards him from the U.S. side, grinning and posing for photos.

“The Americans were all saying, ‘Thank you, Canada,’ and everybody was high-fiving. It was just a big party,” McKellar said animatedly, recalling the day two months later as he sat with a circle of friends around a breakfast table at Olde Towne Bake Shoppe.

Dwight Duncan, a former MPP who chaired the corporation overseeing construction of the bridge, walked it for the first time.