Thread: Border traffic to get worse {U.S.-Canadian}

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/330 ... jam04.html

Border traffic to get worse
Work on new facility, I-5 will slow traffic in both directions

Last updated September 3, 2007 9:14 p.m. PT

By KRISTEN MILLARES BOLT
P-I REPORTER

Think you're waiting too long to cross the U.S.-Canadian border now? It's about to get worse for a long time -- thanks to a pre-Olympics overhaul.

Construction on the Customs and Border Protection facility at the Peace Arch crossing in Blaine promises to tangle traffic at the border for at least two years by reducing the inspection lanes for travelers entering the U.S. from seven to four.

Crossing the border on a weekend or holiday can take two hours at peak times. And increased inspections in the past couple of months already have led to border lines as long as they were after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Even worse snarls come first: Beginning this month or early October, the number of customs lanes for thousands of travelers entering the U.S. at the Peace Arch will drop to two for 30 to 60 days. Although most of the headaches will be reserved for U.S.-bound motorists, major changes to Interstate 5 also will delay those headed north.

"It will be busy and congested, and we'll probably have unhappy travelers," said Peg Fearon, customs' port director in Blaine.

How long will it take to cross? Neither U.S. customs agents nor the Canadians could say. There are no estimates of how bad traffic might get, or exactly when construction will begin.

Some businesses and regular crossers were already upset at stepped-up security protocols that have recently lengthened the lines on both sides, along the length of the border.

The wait to cross became so long this month at Blue Water Bridge, which connects Port Huron, Mich., with Point Edward/Sarnia, Ontario, that the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario set up portable toilets along the road.

Plus, the United States plans to require all citizens to show a passport or other photo ID deemed acceptable by the Homeland Security Department when they re-enter the country beginning Jan. 30.

But the finished product in Blaine should ultimately allow traffic to flow faster under increased security.

The $70 million-plus project is scheduled to finish by the end of 2009, less than six weeks before Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics. At that point, there should be 10 lanes available to accept travelers.

"It's a total reconstruction of the facility to make it more able to handle the volume of traffic it is taking," said Bill Lesh, spokesman for the General Services Administration, which owns the buildings used by customs and will be overseeing the construction.

Later this fall, traffic heading north to the border on I-5 will be diverted to lanes of southbound I-5, which will become a two-way thoroughfare while the northbound freeway is rebuilt as a bridge over the new customs building.

Until that is finished, "the Peace Arch is going to be a mess," customs spokesman Willie Hicks said. "We will have the wait times posted on our Web site, and we're trying to get people to use that to make their decision on where to cross."

The best recommendation from customs is to try using alternative border crossings: the Pacific Highway crossing at state Route 543 in Blaine (also under construction), state Route 539 in Lynden or state Route 9 in Sumas.

Increasing space for vehicle inspections -- which have risen dramatically since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 -- was a key factor behind the project, which will expand the customs site from 2.5 acres to 12 acres.

The Blaine crossings between Washington and British Columbia see the third-highest volume of passenger traffic and the fourth-highest volume of commercial trucks along the entire U.S.-Canadian border, according to the Washington Department of Transportation, which calculates that commercial traffic has increased 85 percent over the past 10 years.

While commercial traffic is prohibited at the Peace Arch crossing, about 2,000 trucks travel daily on state Route 543 using the Pacific Highway crossing, according to information from customs and Statistics Canada.

Washington transportation officials estimate that border congestion at that truck crossing costs trucking companies $22 million a year. The Canadian Ministry of Transportation puts that figure at $60 million, based on a survey of B.C. and Washington truckers, and estimates that the value of goods transported across the border annually by more than 1.3 million trucks tops $24 billion.

Route 543 is in the middle of a $47 million project to expand it from a two-lane highway into a five-lane freeway, with an interchange to and from the D Street overpass that connects it to I-5.

"This project will make it easier for truckers to get to the border and for Blaine residents to get across town," state DOT spokesman Dustin Terpening said.

In 2004, he noted, an average of 11,000 vehicles a day used Route 543 at Boblett Street, a third of a mile north of I-5.

Currently, one lane of Route 543 is open in each direction, and all cars and trucks are sharing those lanes until the D Street interchange and the future southbound lanes are finished. Eventually, there will be a designated northbound truck lane, which splits into two lanes once it leaves the highway and lines up with the Canadian inspection booths.

Terpening said the state agency plans to open D Street (currently closed at Route 543) and the designated truck lanes this fall and the D Street interchange ramps and southbound lanes by spring.

All this construction means the flow of trade across the border could be affected by the diversion of travelers to crossings relied upon by truckers.

Hicks, the customs spokesman, said commercial traffic at the Pacific Highway crossing shouldn't be affected because the three customs lanes for commercial vehicles there will remain open and the Canadian government created a FAST (free and secure trade) lane dedicated to truckers.

The problem is getting to that lane, said Lloyd Ludtke, president of Ludtke Pacific Trucking, who said the Route 543 project was much needed and overdue.

"We've got some FAST drivers who are doing electronic manifests, but that is all predicated on getting to the gate," Ludtke said. "If you have two miles of trucks ahead of you. ..."

Ludtke had no complaints about the increased security, but said that some of his 36-truck, Bellingham-based fleet travel to and from Canada daily -- and they are already suffering from border congestion.

"It's unfortunate that they had to do both projects at the same time, but that's government planning," Ludtke said. "The trucking industry is going to take the brunt of it."

For travelers trying to plan trips, customs officials recommended enrollment in the NEXUS program, a collaboration between U.S. customs and the Canada Border Services Agency that allows vehicles to use dedicated lanes at the border.

James Rector, customs assistant director for passenger operations at Blaine, said 30 percent of travelers coming through the Peace Arch crossing have NEXUS cards. (For information online, visit getnexus.com).

The plan for the two lanes at the Peace Arch, Hicks said, is to have one general-use lane and a NEXUS lane.

For those going north via the Peace Arch crossing, known as the Douglas crossing to Canadians, the Canada Border Services Agency has four lanes open to regular travel and one lane open to NEXUS cardholders.

The Canadian government's facility is also under construction and has been for more than a year. Spokeswoman Paula Shore said the new facility will open by late spring with 10 inspection lanes, two of them NEXUS.

Both the northbound and southbound Pacific Highway crossings have six inspection lanes for passengers, including one NEXUS lane.

Even with the NEXUS program, Rector said a review of wait times over the summer has shown that "people are changing their trips up because of wait times."

"People might just decide not to travel," Rector said, but he noted that's unlikely because the Canadian dollar is so strong it's driving people to visit America.

"The new Peace Arch (border station) has to be done at some point," he said, "and it would never have been good timing."

TODAY

7 LANES

SOON

2 LANES

FOR 30 TO 60 DAYS

THROUGH 2009

4 LANES

BORDER TRAFFIC CHECKS
Trying to cross the border? Information on wait times varies according to which Web site you visit, so click on them all, if you can.


For southbound and northbound traffic wait times at the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway crossings, via the Canada Border Services Agency:
cbsa.gc.ca/general/times/menu-e.html.


For southbound, non-commercial traffic wait times at the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway crossings, with access to camera views, by way of the Canadian Ministry of Transportation: www.th.gov.bc.ca/ATIS/index.htm.

For U.S. Customs and Border Protection wait times: apps.cbp.gov/bwt.

To check on wait times and see camera views from the Washington State Department of Transportation:
wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/border/I5_PeaceArchPark.htm. INSIDE: Heading north? See our directory of where to check for border wait times. A5



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This report includes information from The Associated Press. P-I reporter Kristen Millares Bolt can be reached at 206-448-8142 or kristenbolt@seattlepi.com.

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/330 ... jam04.html

What timing. Bush gets back from the SPP meeting in Canada, and a week later this article appears. They are worried that it takes too much time to get back and forth over the border.
I guess everyone wants to get started on the NAFTA Super Highway ASAP.