El Paso City Council votes to increase bridge tolls
El Paso City Council on Tuesday voted to increase the bridge toll at City-owned international bridges and divert the extra revenue to pay for overtime of Customs and Border Protection officers.
The pilot program is meant to decrease wait times at the ports of entry and increase border trade. The 50-cent increase will take effect on Jan. 26 at the Ysleta and Paso Del Norte bridges.
Border crossers in commercial vehicles will pay $4 instead of the current $3.50 and people in non-commercial vehicles will have to pay $3 instead of $2.50.
“Given the fact that trade is the backbone of our economy and $90 billion of trade comes through our ports, it is absolutely imperative that we focus on supporting this sort of commerce,” said City Rep. Cortney Niland.
Not everyone supports the project.
“I don’t feel that that this government entity should be supplementing what the federal government should be doing,” said City Rep. Carl Robinson.
He and City Rep. Eddie Holguin voted against the plan.
Jane Shang, the City’s Deputy City Manager for Transportation said City officials will measure the wait times at the ports using cameras. The ultimate goal is to reduce wait times to 15 minutes, according to Shang.
The City is going to measure wait times from the toll booth to a point a quarter of the way up the bridge. Some city representatives are confused about how the City’s truly going to evaluate wait times if it doesn’t measure from the actual place a car gets into the bridge line.
“You’re telling me that from a certain point it’s going to take you 15 minutes and if you’re at the end of the line we didn’t accomplish anything because you still had to be in line for half an hour,” Holguin told Shang.
Shang said they’re measuring that last quarter of the bridge because that’s the problem area that causes a backup.
“No, because the travel patterns – we find that the delays are based on there’s such a long cue. so our reasoning is that we need to eliminate this long cue. And that means before it develops, we keep all the lanes open,” Shang responded to Holguin.
The City expects to keep every lane open during peak hours.
Each Customs and Border Protection officer can only acquire about $7,500 in overtime, according to City officials. Shang said that CBP has waivers that allow the officers to accrue more overtime if it’s necessary.
City Manager Joyce Wilson said the last toll hike at international bridges was implemented in 2007.
