Matamoros. Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, are working on a two-state trail that would create an economic and arts district straddling the border. In an electoral season filled with heated rhetoric about immigration, the conversation around the U.S.-Mexican border has focused on walls and how high to build them. But in two cities abutting the border, officials would rather talk about crossing the boundary with a bike trail.
Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, are, like many adjacent border towns, municipal siblings. Together, they form a metro area of more than a million people and an economic zone near the Gulf of Mexico that encompasses a deepwater port and numerous factories
Recently, the two cities have found common ground and collaborated on issues such as economic development and combating the Zika virus. But the possibility of a cross-border development project, as reported in Citiscope, may link them in a more concrete way, while creating an innovative cultural district. Recently, Brownsville opened Linear Park, an 8-mile bike trail that threads along an abandoned rail line that runs through downtown. Planners on both sides of the border have discussed connecting that pathway to a potential trail in Matamoros, extending the arts district that?s blossomed on the U.S. side and creating a wider cultural corridor uniting both towns.
Matamoros planner Mauricio Ibarra and Brownsville?s assistant city manager Ruth Osuna began formulating the plan ...