Crossings on bridges, almost at pre-pandemic levels

City of Juarez.– Post-pandemic movement along the Juárez-El Paso border has recovered, but not fully.

In the third quarter of this year, Ciudad Juárez reached 872,453 crossings to the neighboring country, 77% more than recorded at one of the highest points of the crisis caused by Covid-19, closing non-essential crossings. Second quarter of 2020. 492 thousand 984 were registered during this period.

However, pre-pandemic figures averaged 956,682 per quarter in 2019.

The statistics are the most recent from the Border Bridge Trust and indicate commercial, motorcyclist and pedestrian crossings over the Paso del Norte, Guadalupe and Zaragoza bridges.

It is excluded because it is not run by the Cordova-De las Américas or ‘Libre’ Foundation.

Between July and September 2019, official numbers indicate that 417,176 vehicles, 4,873 motorcyclists and 522,996 pedestrians crossed El Paso. There were 11,637 inventories.

By June 2020, as bridges were closed due to the pandemic, the figures had fallen sharply: there were 263,334 vehicles, 3,147 motorcycles and 178,681 pedestrians. Inventory volume rose to 47,822.

In 2023, the third quarter recorded 411,872 crossings by car, 9,339 by motorcycle, and 406,893 by foot, the latter equaling the same period in 2019. There were 44,349 commercial crossings.

The foundation’s director, Rogelio Fernandez Irigoyen, said there was a recovery in cross-border dynamics, but that pre-pandemic numbers had yet to be reached. However, he said he did not know the reason for that.

Hand in hand with this increase, the parastatal also recovered a higher proportion of its income, cut during the health crisis to the extent that the city stopped investing in public works due to tolls on bridges. .

In 2020, the foundation raised an average of 23 million pesos monthly, this year an average of 48 million pesos, more than doubling.