El Paso and Juarez sign alliance with Freight Shuttle Xpress
EL PASO, TX – The authorities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua signed a collaboration agreement with the private company Freight Shuttle Xpress to be facilitators in a modernization project focused on heavy cargo transportation on the international bridges.
“It means putting our grain of sand in a great project of private origin, which has to do with modernizing the cargo transportation crossing, because there is a gigantic one between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso; they are looking for the municipal governments for permit issues, in what we can contribute to facilitate as managers,” said the mayor of Juarez, Cruz Perez Cuellar.
“Ciudad Juarez and El Paso are going to work together, because we move many things together and working together is very important, this we are doing is a vision forward, it is something that no one else has and it is the first bridge in all the United States,” said Oscar Leeser, mayor of El Paso.
According to Perez Cuellar, the project does not require any municipal investment, since the signing of the agreement consists of supporting the procedures for the construction of the infrastructure, which aims to cross the loads in a faster way through a kind of electric train that is visualized specifically for the Zaragoza International Bridge.
“This project is very ambitious because it seeks that through a train, on a second floor, the transportation of goods is carried out in some premises to upload a container; for example, from Mexico down in the United States and with this avoid problems not only environmental,” said the director of Economic Development of Juarez, Ivan Perez.
On November 7, 2022, the El Paso City Council authorized Mayor Oscar Leeser to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ciudad Juarez and Freight Shuttle Xpress to explore the development and implementation of new technology for the movement of cargo through the Ysleta-Zaragoza International Port of Entry.
The facility would be operated by the city of El Paso along the U.S.-Mexico border, local officials said.
The memorandum will provide the basis for potentially modernizing the bridge system with fully automated equipment that could increase the amount of cargo crossing the El Paso-Juárez border while relieving traffic congestion at the Ports of Entry and with the potential to become an economic engine for the region.
The event was attended by Roberto Tinajero, interim director of Puentes Internacionales; Clay Signor, chairman of the board of Freight Shuttle Xpress, as well as authorities from both sides of the border and personnel from the private company developing this initiative.