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If there’s one thing New Brunswickers love to do, it’s take a trip across the border. But these days, you might want to budget a little more time.
Especially heading into a long weekend.
John Slipp is the owner of the Woodstock Duty Free shop, right on the border crossing into Houlton, Maine at Interstate 95.
The view of America-bound cars from his window around noon on Friday was bleak.
“Vehicles are lined up past Canada Customs back as far as I can see. It’s a busy day,” Slipp said.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection website lists wait times for border crossings in real time compared to an average.
The wait time at noon Friday for cars heading into the U.S. past Slipp’s store was listed as 55 minutes, longer than the 25-minute average.
While vehicles headed into the States are backed up, he said the line into Canada is often helped by opening an additional lane. But that’s not the case with the Americans.
“We’re a little frustrated with U.S. Customs because they don’t open a second lane near as often as Canada Customs does. So that slows things down considerably,” said Slipp.
Duty free shops well-positioned to see issues
Barbara Barrett is the executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association, which represents 32 duty-free shops on the Canadian side.
She says lineups heading into the States are an issue along the whole border.
“People look at how long the wait times are at the border before they cross, often, and if there’s a two-hour wait, it disincentivizes them to even try and cross,” Barrett said.
For duty-free shops, she said that long lines keep customers from shopping.
“If you had a spot in line, you don’t want to get out of the line and go into the parking lot and then have to get back in line again,” Barrett said.
She said issues with lineups at the American border are just one more problem after her industry suffered with border closures during the pandemic.
“They need more lanes open, we need the traffic flowing,” Barrett said.
Houlton crossing worse during summer, weekends
The border crossing at Houlton is unique in that unlike other spots along the border, there are no alternative, smaller crossings nearby.
The nearest crossings both north and south are approximately 35 kilometres away in either direction.
And when there’s a long lineup, some people stay away.
“A couple weeks ago they were all calling because they’re like, ‘It’s a two-hour wait at the border,'” said Leonard Wilde.
He works at Mailboxes International, a business in Houlton that receives packages for Canadians.
Customers travel the quick three kilometres to the store, pick up their packages and pay Wilde, then head back to Canada.
He recalled a weekend a few weeks ago when border wait-times were especially bad.
“That one Saturday, we had customers that actually turned around because they knew they weren’t going to sit there for that long to come across to do what they needed to do,” Wilde said.
Just up the road, Slipp looked out the window of his duty-free shop and said people need to be patient.
“I think we can fairly assume that like everybody else, staffing is a challenge. If Customs is short staffed it’s harder to keep lanes open, that’s part of the problem,” Slipp said.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol was unable to provide an interview to answer questions about staffing and wait times at Maine borders, but a spokesperson sent an email statement to CBC News.
The statement said they are always trying to get people through the border process quickly, while also maintaining security. It also said the department intends to streamline the admission process, but didn’t say how.
The statement did not address questions about why only one lane is sometimes open to Houlton, how the agency makes a decision to open more lanes, and if the agency has enough staff for additional lane openings.
The Canadian Border Services Agency also did not respond to request for comment in time for publication.
More options can ease wait times
About two hours south from the Woodstock-Houlton border is another busy crossing point in the region. But between Calais, Maine and St. Stephen, N.B., there are three bridges.
Two downtown crossings at Ferry Point and Milltown are accompanied by a highway crossing at Third Bridge, which was completed in 2009.
Bill Killby is manager at Hardwicke’s Country Store, a gas station and convenience store immediately after American customs at the Ferry Point Bridge.
“The bridge has been lined up pretty much all day, lots of gas going. Things are looking pretty busy,” Killby said Friday, ahead of the long weekend.
He said the two lanes to enter the U.S. at this crossing are usually open in the summer, and he’s heard talk from U.S. Customs of opening a third.
Upriver at the highway crossing on the Third Bridge, St. Stephen Duty Free Store owner John Marshall still hasn’t seen a return to pre-COVID travel numbers.
“We have three crossings here, so there’s a lot of room for local traffic to cross,” Marshall said.
He can’t relate to the issues with long lines like his counterpart at the duty-free shop up in Woodstock.
“In a normal year we’ve had that problem, but so far with the new bridge crossing here and the two with the local traffic, we haven’t experienced that yet this year,” Marshall said.
Even with the newer third bridge option upriver, Ferry Point still remains busy for locals and tourists alike.
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol website describes a “modernization” project for Ferry Point to add an additional lane for “enhanced traffic management and flow.”
Construction will begin July 2025 and will not finish until May 2027.
Calais Mayor Arthur Mingo “absolutely” supports adding a new lane, and says there’s even plans to build a new, larger bridge there in the future, but that’s “years down the road.”
“For personal reasons, I use that bridge a lot myself and it is kind of a pain to get back sometimes when there is only one lane,” Mingo said with a chuckle.
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