The border station in Derby Line. Photo by Richard CreaserDERBY LINE — A Canadian who says she was ordered to stand in line with cars waiting to cross the border here has questioned both the safety and the civility of the way this country welcomes pedestrian visitors.

Kim Prangley, a dual citizen residing in Stanstead, voiced her concerns to the Derby Line Village Trustees following an uncomfortable incident at the border in late May.

Ms. Prangley is not a novice to crossing the border between the two countries.  As the former head of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, daily crossings between Stanstead and Derby Line are commonplace for her.

"I've lived here my entire life," Ms. Prangley told the Chronicle in a telephone interview on Monday afternoon.  "Crossing the border has always been an easy process.  Well, it had been."

Ms. Prangley recalls that had she decided to walk from her home in Stanstead to attend a circle dance at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Derby Line on a Saturday at the end of May.  While she could not recall precisely if it was on May 21 or 28, she vividly recalls her experience trying to enter the United States.

Ms. Prangley said she walked to the border and waited for the current vehicle to conclude processing before approaching the customs officer on duty in the booth.  The officer ordered her to walk back down the hill and get in line behind the vehicles already queued for inspection.  Believing that she had misheard the officer, she asked if he could repeat his statement.  So he did.

Ms. Prangley next approached a different officer who occupied the small office that forms the remainder of the border station.  That officer, she said, repeated the instructions of the officer in the booth.

"I couldn't believe what they were telling me, and told them so," she said.  "It seems an entirely unreasonable use of an officer's discretion to order a pedestrian to stand between the bumpers of cars to await entry.  I told them I had better things to do in Canada, and walked back home."

The issue of pedestrian safety has long been a concern for people on both sides of the border.  While the northbound approach toward the Canadian customs inspection station is outfitted with a sidewalk that leads up to and beyond the inspection area, southbound pedestrians face a far more nebulous situation.

The Route 5 station sits on an island of sorts, surrounded by a parking area dedicated to the U.S. Post Office building attached to the border crossing.  The sidewalk ends at the north end of the parking area serving the post office, and does not recommence until beyond the border station directly in front of the Derby Line village hall.  While there is a zebra striped area marking a roadside sidewalk, this area does not lead to the inspection booth but, rather, bypasses it along the east side of the facility.  In order for pedestrians to even approach the customs booth they must first cross the entrance to the post office parking lot.

The issue of how to seamlessly, and fairly, process a mix of pedestrian and vehicular traffic is an issue in need of resolution, said Keith Beadle, chairman of the Derby Line Village Trustees.  The Derby Line crossing does not boast a high volume of pedestrian traffic, Mr. Beadle acknowledged.  By his estimate the station might process at most a dozen pedestrians daily.  Ted Woo, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), stated in an e-mail to the Chronicle that according to his data the volume is only half that.

Attempts to elicit a response from CBP specific to Ms. Prangley's case were unsuccessful as of the Chronicle's publication deadline.

Mr. Beadle said that the trustees have approached CBP voicing their concerns about the potential for tragedy if officers insist on blending vehicular and pedestrian traffic.  The response from the agency was less than satisfying.

"The Port Director Mary Roussel told me that pedestrians would just have to wait their turn like everybody else," Mr. Beadle said.  "She told me it was an issue of fairness to the cars that are waiting their turn to be processed.  I think there has to be a better way to handle this."

An official with Customs and Border Protection said that pedestrians have never been ordered to stand in traffic.  Rather, the protocol is for the pedestrians to stay at the end of the sidewalk, await acknowledgement from the officers on duty, and to proceed when the passage is safe and clear.

Mr. Beadle, a retired U.S. Customs officer himself, said that the process for handling pedestrians was different in his day.  Pedestrians could walk up to the office and the officer on duty within would then handle their processing.  This enabled cars to continue to move freely through the inspection lane while keeping pedestrians out of harm’s way.

The border official disputed this claim.  The official said that pedestrians have always been processed in the regular inspection lane in proper turn order.  Handling arrivals in this manner helps diffuse potential irritation by the occupants of cars in the queue.

"I don't know that driver irritation is really an issue," Mr. Beadle said.  "I don't think you can tell someone to stand in traffic.  I think it violates not only common sense and reason, but no doubt state regulations governing highways."

Ms. Prangley said that the issue goes beyond any perceived inconvenience to either pedestrians or motorists.  The bigger issue is the gradual erosion of the sense of community shared between Stanstead and Derby Line.

"When this community was founded, it was founded on the principles of community and peace," she said.  "The border was something that simply existed.  It was a line on the floor of the Haskell.  It was never meant as an impediment to our sense of community."

Ms. Prangley's complaint is only the latest volley in a longstanding dispute between residents of this border community and the federal government.  While many acknowledge the need for tightened security in the post-9/11 world, that security cannot come at the expense of diminished relationships between the residents of the two halves of a single community, Ms. Prangley said.

"It's not merely an issue of being inconvenienced trying to cross the border," she said.  "It's about the dehumanizing treatment of visitors, and making people feel like second-class citizens or people who are unwanted."

The situation has certainly deteriorated with the introduction of many customs officers from outside the community, Ms. Prangley said.  You have to live in this community to really begin to understand and cherish the free flow of commerce and visitors that defines it, she said.

"This kind of treatment leaves you feeling violated and unwelcome," Ms. Prangley said.  "Martha Stewart Haskell would be spinning in her grave if she could see what became of her beloved border community."