ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The nation is gearing up to ensure goods can continue to flow from coast to coast as transportation becomes electrified. Now, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has announced New Mexico will play a key role.
New Mexico’s I-40 corridor is a key stretch of freeway connecting the nation. Over the last few years, Bernalillo County and a handful of other local government agencies have been working to bring infrastructure to support electric vehicles and hydrogen trucks passing through the state. Now, the USDOT has designated the effort as a “Regional Infrastructure Accelerator.”
“So, they essentially gave us like venture capital money,” Marcos Gonzales, the executive development officer for Bernalillo County, told KRQE News 13. The idea is to “change the way that shipping is done in the U.S. to kind of make it more expedient with having logistics and warehousing here in Albuquerque.”
The federal designation is intended to help local governments secure funding to build infrastructure. In New Mexico, Gonzales explains that the plan is to build a “truck mobility complex” somewhere near Albuquerque.
“We’re still looking at locations to identify where this would be, but the concept plan was like a 6,000-acre facility to do this,” Gonzales said. “We’ll be looking at how to partner with companies that want to build and want to have their warehousing logistics site.”
Other cities will have similar mobility complexes to support a modernized transportation industry. But it will still be some time before the full plan is realized – Gonzales with Bernalillo County hopes that within the next year they might have a better idea of what infrastructure they’ll want to try to get built in New Mexico.
