Two Valley congressmen are calling for more international bridges in Cameron County

Congressmen Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar sent a letter to the state department asking them to speed up the process of approving presidential permits to construct new border crossings.

The process of building a new international bridge can take up to 10 years.

A Valley businessman says new bridges are needed since it’s taking longer for tractor trailers to enter the U.S. from Mexico.

Agustin Ravelo, the vice president of sales for the commercial transportation company Continental Transport Inc., said creating more bridges would speed up the transportation of goods.

Cameron County Administrator Pete Sepulveda said building more official border crossings can take years.

“It's ideal if you were to have a financial feasibility study that said, ‘yes, the project is feasible both in the U.S. and Mexico,’” Sepulveda explained. “That doesn't happen very often because we do our own thing. Mexico, they do their thing."

Besides having an agreement between both countries, an environmental document that can take more than eight months to develop is also needed.