Canadian shoppers flocking stateside this long weekend
Posted Jul 29, 2011 11:43:36 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
PEACE ARCH (NEWS1130) – US retailers will be seeing a lot of Canadian shoppers this BC Day long weekend. News1130 caught up with drivers at the Peace Arch where bargain hunters are lining up for a weekend of better deals down south.
Even people with other motives for crossing the border are still planning to do some shopping.
“My grandkids live down there,” says one woman. “I’ve been going back and forth [for about] a year now, and I do a lot of shopping down there, and so does my son. He’s got two children, he lives in Burnaby, and he and his wife will go down there and buy their groceries.”
“We’re going there to shop for groceries, clothing, and sporting goods,” says one man. “The dollar is strong and that’s why we’re heading down there.”
Aside from shopping, golfing and visiting family have also been mentioned as reasons for heading south of the line. Shoppers add they’ll definitely be filling up the gas tank before they come back.
Extra border wait signs
Just in time for the long weekend, the Transportation Ministry has added a couple of extra electronic border wait signs to our highways.
Aldergrove and Abbotsford Huntington were not adequately represented in the past says Regional Director Patrick Levolsi. “What we’ve done is extended the advanced travel information system for all four border crossings… so people can make a bit more of an informed choice on which border crossing to take.”
“[At] Hwy 11 and 13, [they’re on] the approaches to the border crossings,” Levolsi explains. “Then we have three other bigger boards… what we call the hybrid signs… on Hwy 1, 99 and 91. Those signs there actually have all four border wait times.”
