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The Washington State Department of Transportation has been awarded $7M in grant money to improve information on wait times for those crossing the northern border.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The WSDOT was awarded almost $7 million through the U.S. Department of Transportation\u2019s Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation grant program and will be used for Blaine, Lynden and Sumas, Washington border crossings, reported The Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis grant will provide crucial funding to install new technology that will improve traffic management during border-crossing surges that will keep travelers and goods moving,\u201d said Democratic U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell.\u00a0<\/p>\n The current wait-time notification systems are over 20 years old and are \u201cfailing or becoming obsolete.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe technology used to estimate traffic delays doesn\u2019t work as well in queued conditions; accuracy is impacted with infrastructure or operational changes; there are no calculations for commercial wait times; and wait times provided are estimates when an ideal system would provide estimated and actual wait times as two calculations,\u201d the Whatcom Council of Governments said in 2022.<\/p>\n 356,021 commercial trucks entered the U.S. from Canada through Blaine in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n