BUFFALO - Traffic may be down, but waits are up at the international border crossings this year as screeners take more time to check people entering the country, officials say.

Processing at the Peace Bridge from Fort Erie, Ontario, into Buffalo increased to about 74 seconds during the first two weeks of August from just under a minute during the same period last year, according to Ron Rienas, the bridge's general manager.

For some, that has meant waits of one, two or even three hours stuck in waiting traffic this summer, even though volume at the bridge has been down about 10 percent so far this year.

“When applied to thousands of cars, it is no surprise that we are experiencing more frequent and longer delays,” Rienas said.

Delays also are being seen at the three Niagara County bridges operated by the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, General Manager Tom Garlock said.

“We now factor in an average of 1 1/2 minutes (for vehicle inspection) in the U.S.,” he said. A year ago, it was a minute.

Like the Peace Bridge, traffic is down at two of the Niagara County bridges: 5.4 percent at the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge and nearly 7 percent at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, when comparing this July with last July.

“I will just tell you, it's taking longer to clear (inspection) today than a year ago,” Garlock said. “It's not unusual to see two- to three- to five-minute-long primary inspections.”

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman disputed the contention that more detailed probing was the cause of traffic delays. “As far as the inspection process goes, it has not changed,” Kevin Corsaro said.

“In the morning (at the Peace Bridge), it's horrendous,” said Buffalo businessman Phil Elliott, who commutes from his summer home at Crystal Beach, Ontario. “It takes 30 minutes to get eight or nine cars through.”

Amy Hayward, who travels once a week into Canada, said she has been held as long as 10 minutes.

“Some of the questions - asking for the registration, asking for insurance - to me seems really strange,” she said. “I've been asked, 'Who owns the vehicle?”'

Stan Korosec, president of the Public Border Operators Association, said he is hearing the same thing from operators elsewhere.

“From the cameras, we can watch,” said Korosec, who is with the Blue Water Bridge Authority in Michigan. “You can see it's two minutes plus per car. All the other border operators are telling me the same thing.”

Border experts said part of the delay can be attributed to the practice of border officers manually inputting some driver's license information into computers.

Leaders in several Texas border communities told Diana Lauritson of the Border Trade Alliance that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has instituted a policy of manually inputting 60 percent of the driver's licenses it checks.

“I think (the agency) believes that having the 60 percent checks will ease the public into the implementation” of stricter entry policies being considered for next year, Lauritson said.

Rules that went into effect in January require U.S. travelers to carry passports when flying to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. A similar requirement is to take effect for all land and sea crossings next year.

Corsaro said inputting license information into computers is not a new practice.

“We do query names. We've always queried names,” he said. “It's not a change. It's been going on since 9/11.”

Bridge operators and Corsaro agreed that crossing delays can be greatly reduced if travelers have scannable documents, such as a passport, or obtain NEXUS passes, which expedite crossing.

The NEXUS-only Whirlpool Bridge in Niagara Falls has been the only area bridge to record an increase in traffic, Garlock said.

“A traffic jam on the Whirlpool Bridge is three cars,” he said.

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Information from: The Buffalo News, http://www.buffalonews.com

AP-ES-08-17-07 1707EDT