A futuristic $800 million, monorail freight shuttle system and an El Paso company's electronic freight monitoring system are ways to ease traffic congestion at international ports of entry, El Paso Mayor John Cook and U.S. Rep Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, said during a press conference today.

The pair pushed those technology-based ways of moving freight more quickly across international bridges and other border ports of entry at a recent meeting with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano was "impressed with the status of where we are on a number of projects" aimed at moving traffic more quickly across the border, said Reyes, who's in a re-election battle for his congressional seat.

Cook and Reyes said getting freight trucks across the border more quickly should also help ease overall traffic congestion at border bridges - a years-old problem in the El Paso-Juarez area and other areas of the border.

The freight shuttle system was developed by the Texas Transportation Institute with a team of companies. It would take private investors, a long list of governmental approvals from both sides of the border, to get one built, Cook said. It would cost about $800 million to build a shuttle system at the Zaragoza Bridge in the Lower Valley, Cook said. That's where almost all freight trucks cross from Juarez to El Paso today.

Secure Origins, based in Downtown El Paso, has been working on a freight monitoring system for years. It is set to begin a federal pilot project at the end of April to prove its system works, said Hector Holguin, Secure Origins chief executive officer.

The system electronically monitors trucks as they make their way through a dedicated truck lane from Juarez to El Paso. Secure Origins' sophisticated operations center keeps tabs of trucks and cargo as they make their way from factories in Juarez to the United States.

Napolitano has committed to being at a ribbon cutting ceremony, probably in late April, to officially kick off the Secure Origins' project, Cook and Reyes reported.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com More information: freightshuttle.com; secureorigins.com