Veterans Bridge expansion aims to alleviate lengthy crossings for commercial traffic

Even with fewer border crossings taking place in Brownsville these days, traffic still jams up at Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates.

To address the problem, Cameron County is planning to add a new four-lane span for commercial trucks entering the United States. The county, which estimates the cost of the project at $11 million, is in the process of securing a necessary amendment to the bridge’s original Presidential Permit — required for any structure connecting the United States with a foreign neighbor.

Cameron County administrator Peter Sepulveda says construction should begin in April 2010 and take 12 months to complete. The federal Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program will pay 80 percent of the project via the Texas Department of Transportation.

Cameron County and the city of Brownsville will put up the remaining 20 percent. Sepulveda says the problem with Veterans Bridge is that commercial trucks have a hard time just getting to primary inspection lanes — even if the lanes are empty — because of passenger car traffic.

A U.S. Department of the Interior memo on the project notes the bridge is "at capacity," which translates into long wait times for commercial vehicles — 30 minutes during week days and up to two hours on weekends and holidays. The memo, generated by the U.S. Department of the Interior, forecasts traffic volumes at the bridge to double by 2028, even though volume for both commercial and non-commercial traffic has fallen recently.

Sepulveda says new passport requirements that took effect June 1 have taken their toll on non-commercial traffic, while the recession’s impact on maquiladoras that serve the U.S. auto industry has severely impacted commercial traffic. In 2009 the county will collect about $3.5 million in commercial traffic tolls at Veterans Bridge, down 15 percent from previous years. Sepulveda believes traffic volume will rebound with the economy, however.

"Our commercial and other traffic has been going down because of different issues we’re faced with, but eventually that’s going to come back up," he says. "We need to be prepared when traffic does improve.

Eventually the economy will get better. People will get used to having to get their passport cards. Things will get better. It’s just hard to tell whether it’s going to be in 12 months or 36 months."

The original environmental assessment for Veterans Bridge was put together in 1981. The bridge complex was built in 1999 at a cost of $25 million. Today the facility is crammed with "idling lines of cars and diesel trucks sitting for hours at a time," according to the Interior Department memo. This congestion, which the report notes "contributes to poor air quality at the U.S./Mexico border," would be alleviated by the new span and additional lanes, says the government.

Until the recent drop in volume, truck traffic volume had climbed rapidly at the border, spurred by NAFTA, which went into effect Jan. 1, 1994. The value of U.S. trade to and from Mexico by truck through Texas ports rose from $57.3 billion in 1995 to more than $106 billion in 1999, according to the government. From 1990 to 1999, truck crossings at Texas ports increased from 726,000 to 2.3 million.

Sepulveda says the bridge project has been in planning for about two years and has nothing to do with the city of Laredo’s plan to add seven commercial lanes to its trade bridge.

"They have a different market than we do," he says. "Our competition is the (Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge). That’s our nearest competition."

The Pharr bridge is congested, too, Sepulveda notes, thus improving the flow of trucks through Veterans Bridge could lure some commercial traffic away from Hidalgo County.

"That’s the idea," he says. "That’s a possibility."