I joined Global Entry four and a half years ago. For those Not In The Know, Global Entry is a (highly invasive) Homeland Security program that identifies "Trusted Travellers". A Trusted Traveller gets certain benefits at international land and sea borders and airports that make dealing with the customs, immigration, and security bureaucracy noticeably less irksome. The whole thing doesn't bear careful thinking about. Qualifying requires a records check, fingerprinting, and photographing at a personal interview. Given my deep hostility to REAL ID, one might be surprised that I'd allow myself to be poked and prodded by the government in this way but show me a shorter line at the airport and friend, I'm ALL IN, privacy be damned. Anyway, I decided last week to renew early in the final year of my membership and register my car in SENTRI for faster return trips from Old Mexico (yes, your car also benefits). I figured I'd have to go down to ELP Airport to be reinterviewed or at least show up on a Zoom call. Whatever; I understood the process might take a couple of months if everything went well. Boom! My renewal appeared within a few DAYS and no interview was necessary! I will still have to present my car for inspection but that can happen on my first drive through. Color me amazed!
In 2016 the Trans-Canada Highway bridge over the Nipigon River just north of Lake Superior in northwestern Ontario heaved apart and failed. This severed road access between Eastern and Western Canada until it was fixed. There is truly no redundancy in the road system in that sparsely populated swath of Northern Ontario. (There were logging roads around Lake Nipigon and the Nipigon River, but normal vehicles could not reliably use them. Farther away there were two transcontinental railroad lines.)
For NEXUS, I'd have to appear before a Canadian official in person. Long trip for a privilege I'm unlikely ever to use. With Global Entry, I can use US bound NEXUS lanes so I wouldn't gain so very much.
