Border traffic down in first quarter of 2015

Editor’s note: an earlier version of this post misstated the number of passenger crossings between January and March 2014. The correct number is 3,014,155, not 3,104,155.

In March, 1,096,759 passengers crossed into Whatcom County, according to data from Western Washington University’s Border Policy Research Institute. That’s more southbound traffic than in February, but it is down 14.9 percent from March 2014’s total.

It’s also a bigger year-over-year drop than in February.

From January to March 2015, 3,014,155 passengers crossed the border – a 9.6 percent decrease from the same period in 2014.

The drop in traffic is partly caused by the Canadian dollar, which fell 12 cents compared to the U.S. dollar between January 2014 and March 2015.

Thirty-one percent of Canadians who enter Whatcom County come primarily for shopping and 22 percent come to buy gas, according to a Winter 2015 policy brief by the Border Policy Research Institute.

By the numbers:

January—March 2014 total passengers: 3,432,914

January—March 2015 total passengers: 3,104,155

March 2014 passengers: 1,288,106

March 2015 passengers: 1,096,759.

May-issue-Canadian-dollarFORWEB

 

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