EL PASO – Two Texas ports will receive funding through the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law: the Bridge of the Americas port of entry in El Paso and the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville.
The Bridge of the Americas—known in the region as the “puente libre,” or the “free bridge,” because it has no crossing tolls—will receive between $650 million and $700 million for “new facilities for administration and improved facilities for pedestrian, passenger, commercial and primary inspections,” according to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).
The 28-acre port of entry, which is one of four international bridges in El Paso, was built in 1967 and handles an average of 600 commercial vehicle crossings daily, 12,500 passenger cars and trucks, and 2,500 pedestrians, according to the GSA.
Meanwhile, borderreport.com reported last November that the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville would receive $130 million in federal funds for an overhaul.
“It’s a big deal,” said John McNeece, senior fellow for energy and trade at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of San Diego. “The bipartisan infrastructure law puts big dollars into land ports of entry, and that’s public investment, so it’s a good thing.”
With trade between the two countries exceeding $1 million each minute, July 2022 alone saw “more than $53 billion crossing the southern border via trucks and trains,” according to a 2022 nonpartisan study by The Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.