LAREDO TX:Private truck pike opens

The mover and shaker for the project is Carlos Y Benavides III, a 39-year old businessman and rancher from a long established family in the Laredo area. He put together a group of neighbors and associates who donated right of way and raised about $10m equity. They have borrowed $75 in a private placement for a project cost of $85m.

Benavides was bubbling with excitement about the road’s opening when we talked to him: “It’s just great feeling that we have got there. It’s been a big effort but now it’s done. We’re celebrating. We’ll have a few speeches, and then we’ll have a real Texas barbecue out there. I’m not that big on ceremonies, but we’ve got some bigshots along. Of course the big question is: Will they (traffic) come? We’ve had great forecasts done, and we have our expectations, but you never really know until it opens.”

1,500 trucks and 300 cars a day through the toll plaza are the heart of the tollroad’s business plan. The bridge is currently running 5k to 6k/day, so CC aims to get 25% of the cross-border traffic. Tolls are $3 for cars and $16 for 5-axle tractor-trailers – or $12 if truckers pay the toll for a hundred trips up front with a $1,200 downpayment. That suggests a toll revenue of some $8m/yr. But Benavides acknowledges uncertainties about the traffic especially in the early years.

Before the opening of the toll road a truck from Dallas TX coming down I-35 and wanting to use the Solidarity border crossing had no alternative but to do a V-shaped trip. It had to go south to within 8km (5mi) of central Laredo on I-35 then doubleback northwest along TX-1472, Mines Road, a distance of about 60km (37mi), so the new direct toll route will save 26km (16mi). The old route is at times quite heavily congested, and Benavides says the time savings on the toll road will be anything between 20mins and an hour.

Bureaucracy

Border crossings however are as much about official inspection and commercial transfer efficiencies as about travel times. Benavides and his partners are providing a basic truck transfer station towards the Mexico end of their tollroad. And they expect a variety of other trucking and border crossing facilities to spring up alongside. A lot of cross-border traffic involves short ferrying or drayage in which a local tractor moves the trailer a short-distance and the long-distance tractor plus driver stay within the one country and take different trailerloads back and forth.

Some routes prosper more because of having an edge in dealing with the bureaucracy of a crossing rather than anything to do with straight travel times. The state of Nuevo Leon in which Monterrey is the dominant center is traditionally more commercially minded than Tamaulipas which adjoins downtown Laredo. Nuevo Leon has only a tiny border with the US and the Solidarity border crossing served by the Camino-Colombia toll road (CCTR) is its only direct link to the US. Monterrey has long favored a toll motorway within its territory which would be a more direct link to I-35 than MX-85 that heads directly into Laredo through the state of Tamaulipas. But the national government favored Tamaulipas, and by one account managed to block Nuevo Leon. Vicente Fox could change all that. And the new toll motorway Solidarity to Monterrey direct could be helpful to the CC pike. Even more helpful of course would be abandonment of the border crossing restictions, the great achievement of the European Community. But nothing so enlightened is even being discussed on the US side of the border.

Design

Construction of the CCTR was by Granite after a long period of negotiations with Raytheon Constructors that eventually broke down. Robert Carrillo of Carter Burgess was the principal designer and engineer. He says the road is very solid. It consists of a 400mm (16") engineered base of a lime treated blend of gravel and sand thoroughly compacted and topped by 180mm (7") of hotmix asphalt. It is designed for HS25 loading, heavier than the standard HS20 Texas road. The terrain is hilly and with about 0.7m cub m (1.0m cub yds) of cut and 1m cub m (1.3m cub yds) of fill. The road is well drained. Everywhere they have the likelihood of major acceleration, deceleration or turning, such as at intersections and around the toll plaza the pavement goes to 300mm (12") portland cement concrete. This full depth pavement is a minimum 13.4m (44') wide for two 3.65m (12') travel lanes and a breakdown shoulder 3m (10') each side. Posted speed limit will be 70mph (113km/hr).

Interchanges

The project has two grade separated interchanges – at I-35 and at US-83. The I-35 IC is a diamond with bridging over a railroad and connections to frontage roads each side, the western one of which is brought up on bridging for a high level ‘tabletop’ intersection. Bridge spans of about 35m (115') using conventional bulb-T concrete beams 1.4m (54") deep are used for the interchange, which cost Benavides group around $15m. The IC design provides for addition of sweeping highspeed direct connector ramps in the future, the northbound one being at a third levels. There is already highmast lighting at the interchanges. The US-83 IC is a simpler diamond. Other crossroads – minor local roads – are at-grade intersections with dedicated turnlanes and lighting.

The road is laid out within an alignment allowing a second carriageway (roadway) to the north in any future upgrade to 2x2-lanes. It is designed with bridging and minimum 2.4m x2.4m (8' x 8") concrete box culvert for cattle or wildlife to cross under. The major wildlife issue was the endangered ocelot, a small native tiger. To discourage these and other game crossing at grade there is continuous 2.4m (8') fencing on the boundaries of the tollroad.

The mainline toll plaza is located 7km (4mi) from the western end of the tollroad, making it an ‘open’ or toll free system at its eastern end. The toll plaza has four toll lanes with three booths. Three toll lanes are reversible.

Toll systems were provided by Jim Allen’s United Toll Systems of Wetumpkah AL. Axle counting is by Peek’s Idris smart loops that analyze the magnetic signal of metallic mass, and unlike treadles, have no parts to wear. Unmanned toll collection is by self-swipe credit card or by transponder. Sirit of Toronto supplied Title 21 tags and readers.

Origins

Benavides first proposed the toll road in 1990 (at age 28) at the time construction was beginning on the Colombia-Solidarity International Bridge. But he wasn’t the first. Ralph Durden, a Corpus Christi businessman had formed a group named Camino Falcon to pursue a toll road linking Corpus Christi to the Solidarity bridge and wanted to build his road across the land of Benavides and some of his neighbors. Durden wanted to use the state’s power of ‘eminent domain’ under which private land can be seized if negotiations to buy fail.

Durden’s plan may have been overambitious anyway. It was 225km (140mi) long. But Benavides got to thinking that a more modest I-35 to Solidarity tollroad – the CCTR – made sense. And he wanted to put together the land by negotiation and mutual consent. So he developed his own plan, and Durden abandoned his long road to Corpus Christi.

Benavides pursued the CCTR without state-backed eminent domain powers. There were a couple of holdouts among landowners. The road avoided them by jogging a half mile or so from a straight line. But the major obstacles were political – protectionist sentiment in Laredo, and coolness in the state capital Austin.

Laredo changed politically with NAFTA in 1995. The growth of traffic was so strong there was more than Laredo could handle, and a sense that if efficiency was not stressed in this area, traffic would simply move further away. Laredo Mayor Betty Flores said when the CCTR opened: “This is a different city from the city that felt the tollroad would take business away. Business decides where it wants to be.”

Benavides said Gov George (Dubbya) Bush had been a “big help” in overcoming obstacles: “He took an interest in it. Everything changed with him there. The government got out of the way and we were able to move forward and build. With Richards (the former governor) we could never get anywhere.”

$75m in longterm loans was provided by the John Hancock and NY Life insurance companies. James Taylor II, now with Bear Stearns, formerly with Lehman Bros, has followed the financing of the CCTR from the very first days and is credited with doing more than anyone, except Benavides himself, to put the project together and keep it moving forward.

The agreement with the state provides for 50 years of tolling and then ownership passes to the government of Texas. (Contacts Carlos Benavides 956 723 6779, Robert Carrillo 512 314 3135, James Taylor 212 272 3482)