The backlog continues after a Canada Customs computer glitch was purportedly resolved on Tuesday.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Thursday marked another day of delay and frustration for truckers seeking to deliver goods into Canada.
A computer glitch, which surfaced after maintenance done Sunday, eventually caused Canadian officials to shut down incoming commercial traffic from the U.S. until it could be fixed or they could find alternate means to inspect cargo.
While the computer systems may be up and running again, the backlog of trucks who could not cross previously remains.
Thursday was another day marked by trucks, seeking to cross the Peace Bridge, backed up on Interstate 190 South all the way to NY Route 198, a distance of two miles.
Once they navigated what at times was an hours long delay, the trucks exiting at Porter Avenue would again be made to wait until they would be let through in bunches of 40 or 50 depending on what Peace Bridge officials would tell Buffalo Police who were directing traffic once the trucks left the I-190.
Some would be allowed to navigate the traffic circle on Porter toward the Peace Bridge Plaza while others would be steered in a circuitous route east on Porter, North on Niagara Street, and then back south toward the bridge on Busti Avenue, where they would cue up again and wait for their batch to be allowed to proceed.
Staging them in an orderly, yet time consuming fashion was aimed at keeping trucks from flooding city streets and causing gridlock.
“It’s too much waiting,” said one trucker from Toronto who made his break for the border this morning from where he had been waiting things out at the Angola rest stop on the New York State Thruway.
He described the trip as smooth until he got on the 190.
“Four to five hours so far,” he said of that particular stretch of the journey the which ordinarily might take 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
The effects of the backlog are expected to last into the weekend.
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