Contact Person(s):

Charles Kooshian
Salvador Gonzalez-Ayala

Email Workgroup

Project Description:

The goal of this project is to develop a global improvement plan for transit in the El Paso-Juarez metropolitan area, which will introduce efficiency in its operation, and provide the highest level of service to the user. Nevertheless, since El Paso and Juarez show different problems on their respective transit systems, the scope and strategy of this plan will therefore present different but complementary approaches for each city.

For Juarez the plan is comprehensive, since it will cover all the technical aspects such as route planning, operations, infrastructure design, and financial equilibrium, as well as institutional aspects such as legal frame adjustments, management structure, and outreach programs for public involvement and promotion of its use. This project includes the generation of detailed construction plans and operation schedules for at least one trunk route and its support feeder routes, an will leave the foundation for further development of other components of system.

For El Paso, the overall scope is at the feasibility study level, seeking to identify the potential of introducing transit technologies of higher capacity and efficiency on major corridors.

Cost / Cost Effectiveness:

Taking advantage of the research work on Juarez transportation that IMIP (Instituto Municipal de Investigación y Planeación) has conducted since 1996, with the collaboration of TxDOT and TTI (Texas Department of Transportation / Texas Transportation Institute), it is estimated that this large scale project for Juarez will take 12 months for development, from the time of funds allocation, at a cost of $275,000 US (no funding sources are yet available). When implemented, it is expected to eliminate over 95% of emissions attributed to transit operation.

Furthermore, promoting transit use has the potential of reducing 25% of all mobile source emissions in the mid-term.Regarding El Paso, its Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has programmed close to $200,000 US of Federal and State funds in 1999 for the transit corridor feasibility study. The MPO and Sun Metro will develop the scope of work for this project on the US side and a consultant will be hired to carry it out. The study is designed to identify the major travel corridors in the El Paso Urban Transportation Study area (EPUTS). In addition, close to $100,000 US have also been authorized for a feasibility study of a downtown fixed guideway link to Juárez.

Significance of Impact:

Recent studies indicate that transit is still an important mode of transportation in Juarez, despite its poor condition; yet, these studies also show a notorious increase in the use of private vehicles. Efficiency and quality of service in transit are two essential requirements to revert this trend of “automobilization” of urban travel, and air quality decline. For each 1% of trips that shift to transit mode in Juarez, there will be 6,000 less vehicles in the daily flow. As a direct ecological measure, the plan will seek that all transit vehicles use alternative fuels (i.e. natural gas), and electric energy technologies (trolley, light-rail, etc.) will be evaluated for implementation at specific trunk routes with high passenger demand. In addition, all feeder routes will only use paved streets.In summary, with the implementation of this plan, a notorious vehicle emissions reduction is expected in the short period.

Feasibility:

There is encouraging evidence of technological and financial feasibility for the project implementation. The still important demand for transit service in Juarez (500,000 daily passengers) appears to warrant enough resources to allow for a major system upgrade, under economic investment schemes with minimal government participation or subsidy. From a regulatory perspective on the other hand, the plan will develop its viability by strengthening the identified loopholes and weaknesses in the management/organizational structure and in the legislative frame for providing the service. Due to its wide use, transit service improvement has been for many years a persistent but ignored claim from the local community. In addition, IMIP has lately been pushing for its enhancement among different groups, therefore it is anticipated that this project will receive wide public acceptance.