The Impact of Mexican Rail Privatization on the Texas Transportation System

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has increased truck traffic and infrastructure needs on the Texas highway network, which carried more than 70 percent of the total incoming U.S.-Mexico truck traffic due to trade in 1997. An opportunity to alleviate highway congestion on main highway corridors in Texas and the U.S. is through the encouragement of rail intermodal facilities that could divert freight from the highways. U.S. and Mexican railroad companies, created from the recent privatization of the Mexican Railroad System, are building intermodal facilities and rail yards and upgrading railroad infrastructure accessing Texas-Mexico rail border crossings, which could handle increasing amounts of transboundary freight via rail and/or intermodal, thus reducing the rates of deterioration of the highway systems in Texas and Mexico.|The purpose of this project is to provide Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) with information on current and future infrastructure and operational plans conducted by the U.S. and Mexican railroad private sectors and their impact on TxDOT's highway infrastructure needs.