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Border Infrastructure Coordination Subcommittee

Many different entities own, operate, and maintain land border crossings on the Canada-U.S. border, and the rail and highway systems that serve them. Furthermore, trade and traffic data at border crossings, and within bi-national trade corridors, is collected by a multitude of agencies on both sides of the border. As a result, different kinds of information on border crossings is spread across a host of interested partners, such as customs agencies, federal departments, provinces and states. What is more, with a multitude of interested partners, infrastructure projects along the border have not always been advanced in a coordinated manner.

In the Spring of 2002, the TBWG formally recognized the need to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of border crossing facilities and of the scope of potential improvements at, or in support of, international crossings between the U.S. and Canada, and put forth an effort to assemble all pertinent border information in a single place. The New York State Department of Transportation, with the assistance of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, agreed to lead a Subcommittee of TBWG members to undertake this effort. In 2003, the Subcommittee produced the first version of the Border Infrastructure Compendium.

The 2003 Compendium contains port descriptions (e.g. ownership, physical layout, annual traffic data, etc.) as well as current information on on-going, planned and proposed infrastructure projects at border crossings, including their approaches. The Compendium focused on ports of entry with dedicated commercial operations or significant non-commercial traffic.

At the Fall 2004 TBWG plenary meeting in Calgary, the Compendium Subcommittee (now the Border Infrastructure Coordination Subcommittee) met to take stock of the project and to discuss next steps. Subcommittee members agreed that the project was worth pursuing further, and could be improved and updated throughout 2005. Transport Canada agreed to undertake the leadership of the Subcommittee work. Subcommittee members proceeded to enhance the crossing descriptions with commodity and other new data, and all information was updated to 2004. The result is an on-line Border Infrastructure Compendium that provides a full picture of the busiest Canada-U.S. commercial land border crossings.

In 2007, the Compendium was expanded to include all Canada-U.S. land border crossings. Data collection continues with regard to border crossing information and border infrastructure projects.

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Access to information in the on-line Border Infrastructure Compendium is restricted to TBWG members only. To apply to obtain access , please contact:

Allan Wilson, Transport Canada (wilsoal@tc.gc.ca)
Alicia Nolan, U.S. Federal Highway Administration (alicia.nolan@fhwa.dot.gov)

For assistance in viewing and using the on-line Border Infrastructure Compendium, please contact:

Marc Aubin, Transport Canada (aubinma@tc.gc.ca)