Enjoy This Overnight Timelapse of Planes, Ships Moving Through Detroit

Detroit, Michigan is not one of the busiest areas of transit in the world, despite being the Motor City, but it certainly isn’t a sleepy hub, either. According to the Airports Council International, Detroit Metro Airport (DTW) ranked number 18 in the nation for passenger travel, with over 14 million passengers traveling through it in 2020 — and that was in the midst of a pandemic. And Detroit is also along one of the busiest inland international trade routes. So, what better way to demonstrate the happening skies and waters of Detroit, than with a timelapse?

This timelapse, posted by Detroit’s WXYZ-TV Channel 7, was put together from video taken atop General Motor’s Renaissance Center, on the banks of the Detroit River. The bridge you can see on the south end is indeed the Ambassador Bridge. And a unique treat, of course, is having the U.S. on the right, and Canada’s Windsor on the left.

The lapse starts at 6:00 p.m. Friday (June 17) and ends just before 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning (June 18).

As for the Detroit River, it is just a small part, or rather a mere 28 miles of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which happens to be considered one of the busiest and largest inland shipping routes in the world. The river connects Michigan’s Upper Great Lakes (as in Lakes Superior and Huron) to Lake Erie, routing through to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, while also providing a network for international shipping for both the U.S. and Canada.

While Friday’s ships look to be more on the smaller side, during the week it isn’t uncommon to feast your eyes on several freighters rolling through. All are passing through to eventually deliver tons upon tons of ore and other critical commodities to a trading destination.

Feel like indulging? You can watch the full :20 second video here.