Transforming Borders and Crossing Frontiers : A Trans Border Light-Rail System for the City of El Paso and Juarez

Abstract

The border-towns of El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua are a place of deep trans-border cultures and home to 2.1 million people ("Demographic Data for El Paso"). Many of the residents of this bi-national metropolitan area that live in Mexico work in the United States and have learned to live with the process of crossing this international border everyday. This commute can sometimes produce waiting times of up to two hours for pedestrians and drivers, while creating emissions from waiting cars, and making commuters victims to the drug violence of Cuidad Juarez. The traditional border crossings are incapable of inspecting the high volume of people and automobiles at an efficient rate without sacrificing safety. These border crossings use a centralized system that bottlenecks traffic to points of security that are located directly on the border. This thesis project proposes a light rail system that reduces emissions, and provides a faster and safer method of crossing the border, by decentralizing the border crossing and transforming the border into a usable form of infrastructure that creates a sense of unity between the border cities of El Paso and Juarez.