Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Busti Avenue in Buffalo became more so a parking lot for several tractor trailers Wednesday morning that were trying to get across the U.S.-Canada border at the Peace Bridge.
That was due to continued issues with a system outage in Canada that put a halt to all commercial traffic into the country across the entire U.S.-Canada border. The issues first started Tuesday morning, and them came up once again early Wednesday.
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For some truck drivers, they had only been parked along Busti Avenue since the early morning hours on Wednesday. For others, they have been stuck on the U.S. side of the border since the outage issues began Tuesday.
Many of the drivers, though, were frustrated by a lack of communication.
"I had to walk down to talk to an officer to find out what was going on, and he says they're not getting any information from the Canadian side, so they don't know," said Ed Freiday, trying to get to Newmarket, Ontario.
"Everybody's frustrated. Everybody's talking like, 'What's going on?' That's not fair," said one truck driver heading to Niagara Falls, Ontario. "It will take way too long to repair that system. They keep updating, the IT system is working on the computers, but I don't know who's gonna work this long."
For one truck driver heading to Hamilton, Ontario, the dispatch at his company seemed to be just as much in the dark as he was about the outage issues and when they'd be able to get back across the border.
"Last night I was en route, like 30 miles before. They told me the border is resolved, you can head towards the border now. At the time I came here, the state troopers were here, they stopped us, they told us to park right here. So I've been here since the morning, I don't know what to do now," he said.
For Freiday, he was actually caught up in all the action on Tuesday, only to get caught up in the system outage once again Wednesday morning.
"I sat at the Queenston-Lewiston for seven hours yesterday. Once I got to the booth, I was there 15 seconds, because I'm a 'FAST (Free and Secure Trade) driver', 15 seconds. I was gone, but I had to wait seven hours to get there," Freiday said. "They were putting empty trucks through because they could do them quicker. But it's all the people that need to go through with actual customs clearance that have bogged up everything."
After a while, commercial traffic into Canada started to flow through the Peace Bridge right around 11:45 a.m. That led to a majority of the truck drivers parked on Busti Avenue finally being able to get back on the move and return across the border.