The Windsor-Detroit crossing will make the Top 100 list in 2011 for the fourth year running. Is there light at the end of the “jobs tunnel?”

On June 17, the Windsor Port Authority teamed up with CP Railway and Borealis, and the Detroit River Tunnel Project was re-christened the Continental Gateway. Earlier in the month, the coalition filed the project description to Transport Canada as the first formal document submitted under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are also involved.

So it seems that the Detroit River rail tunnel, re-imagined and refitted a number of times, is moving towards yet another incarnation.

Built in 1909, the tunnel can’t accommodate newer, bigger containers: the double-stacked, nine-foot, six-inch containers and some of the new multilevel rail cars used by many shippers and car-makers. The tunnel was widened in 1994, but can’t be expanded any further to fit the larger containers.

To ship tall containers, CP Railway must pay to use CN Rail’s line between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan, roughly 110 miles away from the Windsor-Detroit border.

Below the river, the current tunnel carries 350,000 cars and $21.5 billion in U.S-Canada trade a year. But the tunnel’s size has put the brake on greater economic expansion in the region.

“A larger replacement rail tunnel is critical to creating jobs and turning Windsor-Detroit into one of the most significant logistics hubs in the Midwest,” said Windsor Port Authority President and CEO David Cree in a news release.

The website for this project (thejobstunnel.com) is currently, like the project itself, in limbo.

A public-private partnership (P3) between the Windsor Port Authority, Canadian Pacific Railway and Borealis Infrastructure Management, is pushing forward a $400-million plan to build a new, high-clearance rail link near the existing tunnel.

After assessment approval from both Canadian and US governments and two to three years of construction, the Continental Gateway expects the tunnel to be built by 2015. Backers say the project will create 2,200 jobs in the area.

But the new tunnel has been on the minds of CP Railway employees and Ontario and Michigan politicians for nearly a decade.

An older embodiment of the Continental Gateway, the Detroit River Tunnel Company, had a different plan.

In 2001, the company wanted to build a new rail tunnel, and turn the existing link into a route across the river for trucks only.

Optimistically dubbed the “Jobs Tunnel” and endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the project never saw light. The Detroit River Tunnel Project faced community opposition from people living both ends of the tunnel, worried about an increase in trucks on their streets.

The truck tunnel went further off track once plans were underway to build a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit.

With the new Continental Gateway slowly chugging towards reality, some wonder what will happen to the old rail link. The Windsor Star reported that observers believe the old tunnel will be used for high-speed rail passenger network or shipping surplus freight.

While the new freight tunnel is being touted as a green alternative to truck transport, other projects for the border between Windsor and Detroit show how much car is still king of the region.

This April, The City of Windsor and the Ontario government completed negotiations for properties required for the construction of the Windsor-Essex Parkway. And in May, the Michigan House approved a plan to build a new bridge across the border, the Detroit International Crossing.