Texas, New Mexico get federal help for border truck safety

Texas, New Mexico get federal help for border truck safety    The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $31.2 million in grants to Texas and New Mexico to help fund improvements and new construction for 10 truck safety inspection facilities along the U.S.-Mexican border, where truck traffic continues to grow along with increased trade between the two countries. The money will be used to buy land, construct new facilities and install new equipment.
   Texas will receive $28.8 million for eight inspection facilities, the DOT said. The money will go to upgrade stations in Los Indios, Eagle Pass, Pharr and Brownsville, and to build two new stations in both El Paso and Laredo, according to the Associated Press.
   New Mexico will receive $2.4 million to upgrade the Santa Teresa and Columbus stations, DOT said. The department is expected to announce similar grants for Arizona and California today. The inspection stations are located further inland from U.S. Customs entry checkpoints.
   The states will pay for the bulk of construction costs. It will cost the Texas Department of Transportation about $20 million to expand or build each station, but so far it has only received about $129 million in state and federal money, the AP reported. The station at the Bridge of the Americas in El Paso is expected to be the first station built and could be completed by late 2005.
   Last summer the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling holding up the opening of the border to long-haul Mexican trucks on environmental grounds. President Bush ordered the border open in late 2002 to comply with the North American Free Trade Agreement, but unions and public interest groups objected at the time. Mexican trucks have been    restricted to an 18-mile commercial corridor on both sides of the border. Most of the trucks are dilapidated, older models operated by mom-and-pop companies that shuttle cargo back and forth across the border to warehouse operators for transfer to long-haul motor carriers to transport to the nation’s interior. Despite the court ruling many observers do not anticipate a surge of Mexican trucking companies seeking to enter the U.S. inter-city market because of the costs of meeting U.S. safety and insurance standards, language barriers for drivers and other factors.