Late last month, truck drivers faced huge backups at the Canadian border with New York. This mess started September 29th and didn’t clear up until October 1st after a computer failure shut down the Canadian customs system.
The impact: Hundreds of big rigs ended up stuck on Western New York roads and ramps for hours, as officials had to process paperwork by hand. CBSA officers worked overtime. Extra staff were called in just to deal with the long lines.
- Some truckers say getting information was tough, making things worse during the outage.
- Yards near the border tried to fit in as many stranded trucks as possible, but parking ran out fast.
- Delays left both U.S. and Canadian businesses without deliveries, causing headaches for customers on both sides.
Looking ahead: New York trucking leaders want to work with the state DOT, border agencies, and other partners to come up with a better plan the next time the Canadian system crashes. There’s talk of improving overflow parking and creating better ways to get updates out to drivers in real time—reported WGRZ.
Canadian officials are also reviewing what went wrong. Meetings are set to talk through what happened and how to avoid a repeat in the future.