Not Giving The Bridge A Break
A March break that is.
I have to envy the people who traveled away on March break. I am sure that they had a pretty good time. They got away when the weather was rather chilly and are coming back hopefully to spring.
Whether they drove down south or flew into Detroit Metro, my guess would be that the worst part of the trip was clearing Canadian Customs in order to come into Canada. Or at least that is what my friend said when he called me yesterday afternoon.
He decided to use the Ambassador Bridge rather than the Tunnel as his point of entry figuring that since they had so many more booths there it would be quicker to go through Canada Customs at that location.
Was he ever steaming when he called me! He said that it took him somewhere between 30 to 45 minutes to clear Customs. He was furious. He wondered if the Management at Canada Customs understood that people were going to be returning from holidays this weekend and if so, why didn’t they staff the Customs booths appropriately. Either that he thought or this was the Government’s way of telling Canadians to stay at home and to shop here too.
At the least, he understood that it was not the fault of the Ambassador Bridge Company and he did not blame them. They only operate the bridge and provide the booths. They do not staff them nor run them.
How many other people will not make this distinction and will blame it on the Bridge Company? Not a bad approach to take if one wanted to convince the ordinary citizen that there were capacity problems at the Bridge and that a new DRIC bridge was needed.
Naw, I am being too cynical. No one would ever do that.
I went to the Web and looked up the statistics being shown by the Bridge Company at around 2:30 p.m.
My understanding is that three of the four lanes on the Bridge were used for traffic coming into Canada and only one lane going into the United States. Normally, it is two lanes each way.
Here though is what is very interesting to me. The Americans on a normal weekend for them I assume had 15 car booths open for returning Americans who had partied in Windsor while Canada only had 9 booths open for the throngs of Canadians who were coming back from March break. At the Tunnel, the number of booths open each way was about the same
The wait time into the United States was around 15 minutes while the wait time into Canada was 45 minutes.
Don’t you think that someone in a Customs Management position at the Bridge would have had enough sense to open up more booths. After all, at that time there were 17 booths closed.
In passing, if you do the arithmetic, the Bridge Company has 29 booths coming into Canada today. That number of booths is what the DRIC bridge will have 30 years from now when all of their booths are fully opened. It seems that the Bridge Company is prepared to take action today and to spend their money today to make it easier for travelers to come into the country. They learned after 9/11 never to be caught again with too few booths. However, even if they did have a hundred booths in place, it would not be of any assistance whatsoever if Canada Customs did not staff them.
I wonder if Customs had enough people there to staff the booths. Perhaps that was their problem. I assume however that there were people in secondary Customs or who were in the office ready to collect taxes and duty on cigarettes and booze who could have been sent to open up the booths that were closed to make it easier for Canadians to return home.
Perhaps however I am incorrect. Perhaps it is not the function of Canada Customs to accommodate taxpayers. Perhaps it is their function to teach them not to leave the country.
I have to envy the people who traveled away on March break. I am sure that they had a pretty good time. They got away when the weather was rather chilly and are coming back hopefully to spring.
Whether they drove down south or flew into Detroit Metro, my guess would be that the worst part of the trip was clearing Canadian Customs in order to come into Canada. Or at least that is what my friend said when he called me yesterday afternoon.
He decided to use the Ambassador Bridge rather than the Tunnel as his point of entry figuring that since they had so many more booths there it would be quicker to go through Canada Customs at that location.
Was he ever steaming when he called me! He said that it took him somewhere between 30 to 45 minutes to clear Customs. He was furious. He wondered if the Management at Canada Customs understood that people were going to be returning from holidays this weekend and if so, why didn’t they staff the Customs booths appropriately. Either that he thought or this was the Government’s way of telling Canadians to stay at home and to shop here too.
At the least, he understood that it was not the fault of the Ambassador Bridge Company and he did not blame them. They only operate the bridge and provide the booths. They do not staff them nor run them.
How many other people will not make this distinction and will blame it on the Bridge Company? Not a bad approach to take if one wanted to convince the ordinary citizen that there were capacity problems at the Bridge and that a new DRIC bridge was needed.
Naw, I am being too cynical. No one would ever do that.
I went to the Web and looked up the statistics being shown by the Bridge Company at around 2:30 p.m.
My understanding is that three of the four lanes on the Bridge were used for traffic coming into Canada and only one lane going into the United States. Normally, it is two lanes each way.
Here though is what is very interesting to me. The Americans on a normal weekend for them I assume had 15 car booths open for returning Americans who had partied in Windsor while Canada only had 9 booths open for the throngs of Canadians who were coming back from March break. At the Tunnel, the number of booths open each way was about the same
The wait time into the United States was around 15 minutes while the wait time into Canada was 45 minutes.
Don’t you think that someone in a Customs Management position at the Bridge would have had enough sense to open up more booths. After all, at that time there were 17 booths closed.
In passing, if you do the arithmetic, the Bridge Company has 29 booths coming into Canada today. That number of booths is what the DRIC bridge will have 30 years from now when all of their booths are fully opened. It seems that the Bridge Company is prepared to take action today and to spend their money today to make it easier for travelers to come into the country. They learned after 9/11 never to be caught again with too few booths. However, even if they did have a hundred booths in place, it would not be of any assistance whatsoever if Canada Customs did not staff them.
I wonder if Customs had enough people there to staff the booths. Perhaps that was their problem. I assume however that there were people in secondary Customs or who were in the office ready to collect taxes and duty on cigarettes and booze who could have been sent to open up the booths that were closed to make it easier for Canadians to return home.
Perhaps however I am incorrect. Perhaps it is not the function of Canada Customs to accommodate taxpayers. Perhaps it is their function to teach them not to leave the country.
posted by JoeBlog at 12:01 a.m.
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