TEXAS-MEXICO Camino Colombia: investors' pike OK'd

TEXAS-MEXICO

Camino Colombia: investors' pike OK'd

The Texas state authorities have given the go-ahead to the Camino Colombia Toll Road, a 35km shortcut for trucks travelling between Texas and Mexico. Late January the Texas Transp Commission gave final approval for the project which is the first investor-financed toll road in the state of Texas and the third in the US in the automobile era.

The major route on the US side for truck traffic with Mexico is I-35 that comes out of Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas and San Antonio and heads directly into the border town of Laredo where two bridges in the middle of the business district represent a heavily overcrowded and tediously slow crossing of the Rio Grande into Mexico. A second problem with these crossings is that they go directly into the Mexican state of Tamaulipas which is generally described as being obstructive of efficient, honest trade. Not to mince words, the agents at the Laredo crossings have to be paid off big.

The Way to Monterrey: Most of the truck traffic wants to get into the entrepreneurial state of Nuevo Leon, the capital of which is Monterrey and which is home to many of the 'maquilladora' factories that sell manufactured products into North America. The map of Mexican states is only slightly less contorted than an intestinal-like court-ordered "affirmative action" voting district in the US. Tamaulipas has a squiggly panhandle snaking up most of the southeast border with the US which encompasses Nuevo (New) Laredo, opposite the American Laredo. But the map leaves the entrepreneurial state of Nuevo Leon a narrow neck of territory with a 5km frontage to the US. In the middle of this frontage have been constructed border facilities and a bridge called the Solidarity over the Rio Grande at the Mexican border town of Columbia just 28km upstream from Laredo. The state of Nuevo Leon has recently completed a major highway upgrade to 4-lanes divided of 110km from Columbia to La Gloria, linking in to Toll Road 85 to Monterrey, which with the new Camino-Columbia toll road will enable truckers to use a high quality highway bypassing the Laredo crossings and the state of Tamaulipas entirely.

Family company: The president of Camino Columbia Inc (CCI) is Carlos Y Benavides III, a Laredo businessman and landowner whose family has owned land on the route of the new toll road for generations. Benavides and 12 other ranching families that own land along the right-of-way form the toll road company. They began plans for the toll road in 6 years ago. Public review and environmental clearances have been obtained. CCI has had consulting help from James C. Smith of Texas A&M University. URS/Greiner is doing traffic/revenue studies, Carter & Burgess Engineering and Lehman Bros financing.

Benavides told us his guess is that the traffic will only justify a single two-lane roadway to start with, though bridge structures will be built to accomodate the second roadway for an eventual 4-lanes divided. He says construction is straightforward, the country being generally flat brushy land, with no wetlands or major rivers. Soil is an ideal sandy clay, he says. The only major structure will be a trumpet interchange with I-35 at the eastern end. Minor roads will simply bridge the toll road and there will be cattle and wildlife underpasses and full fencing.

The bulk of the toll revenue will be from trucks and a possible toll rate will be $12 and $3 for cars. Cost of the first stage of the project is put at $50m to $60m. (Contact C. Benavides CCI 210 723 6779, James C. Smith TX A&M 409 845 1017)

TOLL ROADS Newsletter 1997-03