Wait time at Peace Bridge has doubled

Passenger vehicles on the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge have, on average, waited almost twice as long to cross into the United States this year compared with 2012, according to statistics compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and released Thursday by Sen. Charles E. Schumer.

It took an average of 5.9 minutes for passengers to cross the border in the [US] government’s 2013 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. In fiscal 2012, that wait was a mere 3.1 minutes.

And the wait has been far worse during peak times, when the average passenger vehicle has encountered a 26.4-minute wait, up from 17.9 minutes in fiscal 2012...

Customs and Border Protection acknowledged the delays – and the short staffing that Schumer and Peace Bridge General Manager Ron Rienas both said appeared to be at the root of the problem.

A spokesman for the CBP noted traffic is likely to grow at the same pace in coming years, and said President Obama’s 2014 budget included a request for 3,811 additional CBP officers.

The delays don’t just affect passenger vehicles, either. The statistics show trucks encountering similar delays...

Worse yet, the delays are going in both directions, he added.“Entering Canada, you have significant delays for the same reason,” Rienas said.

Schumer has been pressuring Customs and Border Protection to fix the situation entering the U.S.

Improvements at the Peace Bridge plaza and the move of many U.S. Customs operations to the U.S. side – which will happen under a much-touted demonstration project – won’t do that much good if there aren’t enough agents to staff the booths, he said...

And the statistics, Schumer said, offer the best argument yet that more agents are needed...

This has been excerpted from the 19 December 2013 article by the Buffalo News, and is available in its entirety at: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/washington-politics/wait-time-at-peace-bridge-has-doubled-20131219.