Houlton border crossing gets busier

HOULTON – A new section of the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick and proposed changes in inspections of commercial traffic at the local border crossing hold the promise of economic growth for one of Maine’s busiest entry points.

The Canadian Maritimes export more than $3 billion worth of goods by road into the United States every year. And most of that enters through the Woodstock, New Brunswick-Houlton corridor.

Those numbers were expected to increase with the opening in late October of a 117-mile stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway between Moncton and Fredericton, New Brunswick. The new section will save about a half-hour in drive time to the United States.

“It’s so much faster and so much better for trucks heading anywhere down the Eastern Seaboard,” Ken Harding, town manager in Woodstock, said in a recent telephone interview. “We’re going to get a lot more traffic through the Houlton border crossing.”

That has already begun.

According to Bert Magnus, U.S. Customs port director at Houlton, commercial traffic in November increased by 900 to 1,000 trucks for the month.

About a third of all exports to the United States from New Brunswick moved through Houlton, according to figures published earlier this month in The Moncton Times and Transcript, and 66 percent of the exports from Newfoundland pass through the port. Almost that much is exported through the port from Prince Edward Island, and 22 percent of exports from Nova Scotia.

Town officials in Houlton are taking notice.

In addition to immediate access to Interstate 95, the Houlton International Airport and the town’s industrial park are located along the border and there is a railroad spur into the town.

“It’s about marketing Houlton to the world,” said Houlton Town Manager Peggy Daigle on Friday about capitalizing on what’s going on in New Brunswick. “We have to realize that Houlton has to go to the world rather than waiting for them to come to us.”

A prime mover of just such an effort is Andy Savoy, a member of Parliament from New Brunswick. On Thursday, Savoy guided Martin Cauchon, the Canadian minister of national revenue, to the Woodstock-Houlton border to see for himself the degree of cooperation between border personnel and the two communities.

Cauchon visited border offices in both countries.

He stressed technology as another way the route may become a smoother point for truck pass-through.

“This particular entry point is known continentwide as a pioneer in the adoption of new technologies and programs,” Savoy told a gathering of area municipal, business and economic leaders from New Brunswick and Houlton.

“I want Houlton-Woodstock to continue to be at the forefront of new technologies and innovations,” said Savoy. “We have the proven experience and expertise as modern processing facilities to be a model for the perimeter policies and programs of the 21st century.”

Cauchon, a strong advocate of what he termed “smart border” technology, said use of scanners and pre-inspections of low-risk cargoes can greatly enhance the flow of commerce across the border.

Customs and security checks at border points have long been a sore point for Canadian shippers, but the problem has become worse in some parts of the country since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“We need tightened security, but at the same time we need to be aware of blockages that interfere with cross-border trade and commerce,” Cauchon said Thursday.

He stresses technology as an answer, and something of what he has in mind is already in place at Windsor, Ontario – across from Detroit – where pre-cleared trucks from the United States can pass through Canadian checkpoints almost without stopping.

The system there uses an electronic pre-clearance program designed to speed up border crossings of low-risk goods entering Canada from the United States.

Truck drivers are pre-approved to enter Canada and carry other identification to indicate to customs officials that the carrier and the importer of the goods being brought over have also been pre-approved. No other documentation is involved.

Savoy and others in New Brunswick and Houlton are looking for a similar program at the Woodstock-Houlton crossing.

There has been no firm commitment from the United States yet on such a program, although U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill last month indicated his support for efforts to streamline cross-border commerce when he met with Canadian officials.

Houlton officials hope that will happen soon.

“Any time there’s increased traffic coming across, commercial or tourist, we need to think about what can be a benefit to them and an economic opportunity to us,” Daigle said.

“We’re not just an isolated community,” she said. “We’re a region and our region now spreads over to Moncton. We need to think about what we can do to make the flow of goods easier for them and to entice them to our border.”