The international business community is just that—a specific community with its own network, language, and idiosyncrasies. It’s not a difficult community to find, and once you do you discover that there are many people anxious to share knowledge and experience. But like any specialized group, you’ve got to go looking for it. It’s easily overlooked.

When you consider on how much business is conducted on a global scale these days—right here in Buffalo—you wonder why you don’t hear more about it. Hundreds of people are passionate about international business in Buffalo, and hundreds of millions of dollars are churned through the economy by their actions.

There’s no better icon of this hidden-in-plain-sight economy than the Peace Bridge. It’s right there—huge and a part of our visual landscape for 90 years. At its most rudimentary, it’s a gate that swings both ways, allowing Canadian traffic into the US and vice versa. But it’s also an economic engine to this region. 

Ron Rienas, general manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Bridge Authority, helped me understand the operation and economics of the bridge. “We own and operate not only the Peace Bridge itself, but we’re the landlord for customs and immigration services on both sides of the border,” he says. “So we own the buildings, we own the inspection booths, the commercial warehouse, and administration facilities. We’re responsible for about 20 acres on the US side and 75 acres on the Canadian side. The authority does this with about 75 employees. But the total amount of employees connected to what is commonly called the Peace Bridge community would be close to 1,000.”

One thousand jobs directly tied to inert steel and concrete. These are jobs that cannot ever be poached by a Southern state with lower taxes. This might be the most solid anchor-in-the-ground building block Buffalo has. 

“We’re going to be 90 years old next year,” Rienas says. “We’re undertaking a $100 million rehabilitation of the bridge. It’s going to be a major conduit between Canada and the United States for 50, 100 years. So we’re planning improvements in that 100-year timeframe.”

In this xenophobic day and age, it’s an understatement to say America has good relations with our trading partner to the north. “We have a bi-national workforce,” Rienas says. “I don’t consider myself a Canadian Peace Bridge employee, but simply a Peace Bridge employee. When I do orientation for new board members, I say to them, ‘Don’t consider yourself a Canadian board member or a US board member, consider yourself a Peace Bridge board member, and that the border doesn’t really exist.’”

Seems like California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas might be jealous of such an arrangement. 

What’s the economic value of good international relations with your border partner? “The Peace Bridge—just goods transportation—accounts for $40 billion annually,” Rienas says. “The Lewiston-Queenston bridge handles $30 billion. So the Niagara River crossings—goods coming into and leaving Western New York—is worth about $70 billion each year. Additionally Canada is the number one export market for New York State goods. The total export value of goods from New York State to Canada is $35 billion each year. Most of that, between 55 and 65 percent, crosses by bridge, by truck, with rail being the other primary mode. 650,000 New York State jobs depend on Canadian exports and Canadian investments.”

In any business, time is money, and it’s no different when a bridge is your business. Getting product and travelers over the bridge in the quickest possible time, while factoring in safety, is the goal. And technology plays a large role. “NEXUS is a huge time-saver to moving people through the bridge footprint more quickly,” Rienas says. “Right now about 24 percent of our traffic utilizes the NEXUS pass, and we’re encouraging everyone to utilize that system. It gets you through customs 50 to 75n percent quicker. That’s significant. After NEXUS, we have enhanced driver’s licenses and the passport cards, which both utilize RFID technology. These allow customs officials to scan a document and significantly speed verification. The slowest document to process is the standard passport book, because the agent needs to enter that information into the computer. By far the gold standard for swift passage is a NEXUS card.”

Of course anything international implies government involvement, and that can be both good and bad. “Post 9/11, we had what was called the Trade Act, which required the filing of electronic manifest documents for all trucks. In terms of speeding transport and not having trucks idle on the bridge, this was a step forward. As good as it was, there was also a shortcoming. The legislation did not require empty trucks to file a manifest, and 30 percent of trucks entering the US from Canada are empty. This requires the booth operator to enter that data manually, and even if that only takes a minute, you then have truck traffic backing up and adding minutes here and there. That’s an oversight that could be corrected.”

What traffic volume does it take to generate $70 billion in commerce annually? “Let me give you some perspective: 1.3 million trucks cross the Peace Bridge annually and five million cars. That works out to 16,000 vehicles per day. The Grand Island Bridges have 60,000 vehicles per day. So if you see traffic backups on the Peace Bridge, what that demonstrates is that there isn’t a lane capacity issue on the bridge, but it’s dealing with the plazas on either side and the customs process in both countries.”

To hear more from this week’s subject, follow the International Buffalo podcast on dailypublic.com and at internationalbuffalo.com.