Calls Grow for an Improbable Bridge Across Lake Michigan

If you've ever taken a ferry across Lake Michigan either the SS Badger between Ludington and Manitowoc or the Lake Express between Muskegon and Milwaukee you know they are scenic rides but very expensive.

The alternate of driving around the lake is a lengthy trip and can be nerve-wracking travelling through some of the most congested traffic in the country in Northwest Indiana and Chicago.

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What about a bridge or causeway across Lake Michigan? It's likely too fanciful given the distance and conditions, but that doesn't stop people from dreaming.

The concept came up again recently on Reddit, specifically the subreddit known as 'They Did the Math, asking what a hypothetical bridge across the lake would cost.

A few hearty Redditors took a swing at some estimates. u/Misc1 crunched the numbers and came away with $59.5 billion dollars using the following factors:

Milwaukee to Grand Haven is about 85 miles straight across Lake Michigan (source: Google Earth + drive distance vs shoreline). Average depth is around 280 ft, max up to 900 ft (NOAA data). Winter ice covers a big chunk of the lake, with thickness up to several inches to a foot, sometimes piling into “ice shove” walls. That rules out cheap pile-supported trestles like Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana (causeway style). So it would need to be either a floating bridge (like SR-520 in Seattle) or a viaduct/tunnel combo (like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge).

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Further assuming the bridge was tolled to recoup costs, the fee to cross the fantasy bridge would likely be a $300 one-way trip. Hardly cost effective and only slightly more expensive than the ferry options.

A user on the Grand Rapids subreddit devised the perfect path with a footing for the bridge in Milwaukee where Interstate 794 meets Lake Michigan. That point shaves 4 miles across the lake to Muskegon. Importantly, it would allow the bridge to serve as a connection between two interstates - I-94 in Wisconsin and I-96 in Michigan and provide a more direct freeway route between Detroit-Lansing-Grand Rapids to nearby metros to the west like Milwaukee, Madison and Minneapolis.

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Another user suggested a tunnel and estimated the cost of a half billion dollars per mile which would give for a price tag of $42 billion.

A recently fanciful proposal also suggested an automobile tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac as a replacement or supplement to the Mackinac Bridge which can close during periods of inclement weather.