How many Canadian friends did Whatcom welcome back after the border reopened on Monday?
Whatcom County saw more traffic crossing the U.S.-Canadian border once restrictions were loosened on Monday, Nov. 8, but don’t start worrying about finding parking spots at Trader Joe’s or Costco just yet.
The Western Washington University Border Policy Institute counted 2,598 southbound personal vehicles at the Pacific Highway and Peace Arch border crossings in Blaine on Monday, Nov. 8, institute director Laurie Trautman told The Bellingham Herald in an email Tuesday.
That was a 75% increase from the 1,482 personal vehicles counted at those two crossings Nov. 1 — a week before the U.S. began allowing vaccinated Canadians to cross into the U.S. through land Ports of Entry for travel reasons deemed “non-essential” — Trautman reported.
But Monday’s total at the two Blaine crossings was less than a third of the 8,200 personal vehicles that entered from Canada on the second Monday of 2019, long before the COVID-19 pandemic forced both countries to restrict travel between the two countries to “essential” purposes in March of 2020.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported it also did not see a “huge uptick locally,” spokesperson Jason Givens told The Herald in an email.
As of mid-morning Monday, no long lines of cars were seen waiting to get into the U.S. were seen at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, and there was no foot traffic.
“Our wait times were pretty normal with about a five-minute average,” Givens wrote. “We mainly saw snowbirds and essential travel.”
With Canada still requiring proof of a negative molecular COVID test result — a test that can cost $180 or more — within 72 hours of arriving at a border crossing, Givens said, “we don’t really expect to see large increases (in border traffic) until that requirement is lifted.”
Though vaccinated Americans have been allowed to enter Canada since August, it wasn’t until Monday that the U.S. matched its neighbors to the north and began allowing vaccinated travelers to cross for “non-essential” reasons.
Though proof of vaccination will be needed for travelers headed both north and south, the U.S. will not require a negative COVID test for entry.
Monday’s numbers recorded by the Border Policy Research Institute are similar to what the Canadian Border Services Agency has reported since Canada began allowing vaccinated Americans to cross on Aug. 9.
In the Pacific Region, which includes the five Ports of Entry from Whatcom County into British Columbia among others, Canada reported 293,478 foreign nationals made crossings from the U.S. into Canada between Aug. 9 and Oct. 24 (or about 26,680 crossings per week).
That is approximately two-and-a-half times the number of foreign visitors Canada welcomed during a similar time period in 2020 (10,458 crossings per week) when the border was closed to non-essential travel, but less than a third of the 93,106 crossings per week seen in 2019 before COVID hit the area.
This story was originally published November 9, 2021 at 11:47 AM.
