WINDSOR, Ont. -- A study at the University of Windsor is looking into the economic impact the $1.4-billion Windsor-Essex Parkway project will have on the region.

WINDSOR, Ont. -- A study at the University of Windsor is looking into the economic impact the $1.4-billion Windsor-Essex Parkway project will have on the region.

For the past year and a half, William Anderson, political science professor and economic geographer, has led a team in preparatory work for the comprehensive economic assessment.

The effect the parkway has already had on the region will be revealed to the public as early as February.

Anderson said it is rare to study a development from its inception all the way through to the years following its completion.

"What really fascinated me about this and what attracted me to do this project was the fact that there's always the idea that you're going to build these things and it's going to create jobs, but the actual information on which that it's based is fairly limited," Anderson said.

"And so this will be a real case study that will indicate and will have a very good idea of how many jobs were created, how much income was created, and what the impact was on the regional economy. And there aren't a lot of studies like that out there."

Anderson said he came up with the idea for the study a few years ago and in 2010 it was approved with $115,000 from Ontario's Ministry of Transportation.

Some of the funding is used to pay students from the University of Windsor involved in the research.

"The Windsor-Essex Parkway is the No. 1 economic infrastructure priority for Ontario," said Fausto Natarelli, director of the Ministry of Transportation's Windsor Border Initiatives Implementation Group.

"Through this partnership with the University of Windsor, we will be able to see how our investment in this project is providing benefits to the Windsor-Essex community in terms of jobs and personal income and tell us how the parkway will improve regional mobility - a key project goal. We will then be able to apply what we learn from the research to future transportation projects."

Part of the research conducted will evaluate the number of jobs created because of the parkway project. This will include indirect employment, which are jobs created under subcontractors for the parkway that don't work directly on the construction site.

For example, Anderson said, a lot of steel is necessary for this type of large-scale construction. Steel is not manufactured in Windsor so the project is creating jobs elsewhere in the country.

Anderson said although many people are interested in the job creation aspect of the parkway, his team will be analyzing many more economic impacts it will have on both the region and the country.

"You don't build a highway to create jobs. You build a highway to create accessibility," Anderson said. "So we'll be looking at how this project will improve accessibility in such a way that it will benefit the regional economy."

Anderson said land development and real estate will be closely studied in upcoming years and their relation to the building of the parkway and better accessibility to the border.

He said improved traffic flow is inevitable because vehicles will not need to travel along city streets to cross the bridge. He said this could lead to stronger economic ties with the U.S.

"Canada is a trading nation and it depends critically on its trade relationship with the U.S. This is the single most critical link in that relationship and the most important link in the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world," Anderson said. "So when you have a major improvement or upgrade to that, it's going to have big economic impacts."

He compared the economic impacts of the parkway to those resulting from the building of the Ambassador Bridge.

"When they were building the Ambassador Bridge, they weren't thinking that it was going to make it possible to have a complete integration between the U.S. and Canadian automotive industries," Anderson said. "So in a sense, that bridge being there made it possible for those economic activities to develop here."

Anderson was recruited to the University of Windsor by the provincial government in 2008 to fill the position as Ontario research chair in crossborder transportation. He founded and is the current director of the Cross-Border Transportation Centre at the university which is being used by the research group to conduct the study.

"I think what it really comes down to is we're trying to generate information that will help make good public policy, which is what most of the research we do is all about," Anderson said.

"We want to provide more of an empirical basis on which people can make decisions on similar projects and have an idea on what the economic impact is going to be."

Anderson, 57, plans to continue this study well into his retirement. He said he is interested in looking back on the regional economic effects in 2025 to contemplate the project's long-term effects.