Calif. Trucking Assn. Calls for Longer Customs Border Hours

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	Michael James - Transport Topics

Trying to come up with ways to unblock some of the massive congestion for trucks trying to move across the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego, the California Trucking Association is officially calling on the U.S. Customs Service to stay open longer hours.

Customs' hours are crucial to truck commerce, since that agency has the lead role in checking vehicles and drivers entering this country, and all other services are tied to its schedule.

The CTA proposal is one of several in a new "Policy Statement on Cross-Border Transportation Issues" that the group's board okayed on Oct. 20, said Armondo Freire, the president of Dimex Freight Systems who has headed a CTA panel on border issues.

At the heavily traveled truck border crossing of Otay Mesa, trucking executives on the Mexico side told Transport Topics their drivers can sometimes wait 4 hours or more in a line of trucks – with their idling engines adding to area smog problems – to try to get up to Customs' entry port. The southbound wait is shorter but can still delay trucks by a couple of hours, they said.

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