The company that owns the Ambassador Bridge is suing the Michigan Department of Transportation to try and gain access to new ramps. (Dave Chidley/Canadian Press)The company that owns the Ambassador Bridge is suing the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) to try and force the state to open newly constructed ramps that lead to local freeways.

The Detroit International Bridge Co., which owns the Detroit-Windsor toll bridge, filed the lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims on Tuesday.

The bridge company alleges that transportation officials are "attempting to damage the Ambassador Bridge's business" while supporting a competing project to build a new bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor.

The ramps are part of the $230 million Gateway Project funded by the Michigan Department of Transportation. The bridge company was a partner in the project, and the company says it spent more than $100 million of its own money to build new infrastructure to accommodate the new traffic flow.

The ramps were built to carry traffic directly to the bridge from the I-75, I-96 and the East Service Drive, but the lawsuit claims they have been blocked since they were completed in May, 2009.

"Citizens and taxpayers of the United States and the state of Michigan are being deprived of the benefits that their tax dollars were expended to deliver," said company president Dan Stamper.

"We would love to open the ramps," MDOT spokesman Bill Shreck said on Wednesday. "We had a contract for the Gateway Project, and the bridge company hasn't finished building what's in the contract."

Shreck said the bridge company has to complete its part of the project before the ramps can be opened.

With files from The Associated Press