US-Canada

Car traffic between the US and Canada was up a healthy 6.6% in 2011, growing to 30.3m from 28.4m in 2010, but truck traffic at 6.7m was flat.  Overall traffic was up 5.3% to 37.14m from 35.26m - all numbers here are the eleven toll crossings as compiled by the Public Border Operators Association.  

Drops in traffic have led Standard & Poor's to downrate the debt of the Blue Water Bridge Canada, the Canadian government owned portion of the Michigan-Ontario bridge north of Detroit. The debt is now 'A-' vs 'A' before.

November truck numbers for the US-Canada border crossings were a bit weaker than in earlier months and the very severe winter in December will make this month weak too. But overall 2010 is likely to see about a 5% increase in traffic at the border to 35m, cars up about 4% to 28.1m, trucks up about 10% to 6.7m.

The Canadians are spending $1.6 billion dollars of their taxpayer money on a beautiful Windsor Essex Parkway (WEP) to serve an international bridge that won't be built - the DRIC bridge or fourth crossing Michigan-Ontario. The recent American elections have brought to power a Republican governor, Rick Snyder, pledged to reduce waste and contain government spending, who has declared he favors the DRIC Bridge so long as it doesn't put taxpayers on the hook.

Truck traffic at US-Canada toll bridges continues to be way up on last year. May truck traffic this year was 574k v 480k in May last year, a rise of 19.7%. Year-to-date numbers are not that much behind 2.77m v 2.39m Jan-May 2009, a 15.6% increase. These are monthly data compiled by the Public Border Operators Association and cover eleven toll crossings Ontario to Michigan and New York state. But what does it mean?

Traffic at 11 toll border crossings US-Canada in April showed a continuation of recent months' trends - for a quite robust recovery in truck traffic and little improvement in cars. This April car traffic is up a mere 1.7% on April last year (2248k v 2210k 2009-04) while truck traffic is up 14.7% (571k v 498k 2009-04).

Ambassador Bridge this April did 226k trucks v 188k 2009-04 up 20.2%, while cars were 383k v 350k 2009-04, a 9.4% rise.  

Truck traffic at the US-Canadia Ontario border show signs of recovery this year but this is offset by continued decline in passenger vehicles, leaving total traffic numbers about level-pegging with last year.