ASREC framework connects Mexico’s Highway 57, Future I-27 and key trade gateways across North America
Press release from the Ports-to-Plains Alliance
The Ports-to-Plains Alliance is advancing its “57 to 27” strategy to strengthen the connection between Mexico’s Highway 57, which serves Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and Future Interstate 27 in the United States. The strategy is part of a broader effort to develop a secure, redundant and economically important transportation corridor connecting Mexico, the United States and Canada.
Ports-to-Plains Alliance President and CEO Lauren Garduño and Alberta MLA Shane Getson discussed the strategy during the Alliance’s 2026 Annual Conference in Del Rio as part of a session focused on ASREC Ports and moving transportation corridors from designation toward delivery.
ASREC — Advancing Secure, Redundant, and Economic Corridor — is the Alliance’s framework for developing a modern international transportation corridor through the nine-state Ports-to-Plains region. The existing I-27 runs between Lubbock and Amarillo, with the Texas and New Mexico portions of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor federally designated for future interstate development as I-27. The Alliance’s broader corridor vision extends north through the Heartland Expressway and Theodore Roosevelt Expressway High Priority Corridors toward Canada.
The corridor is intended to provide an additional major north-south trade route west of Interstate 35 and east of Interstate 25, connecting agriculture, energy, manufacturing and distribution centers with major east-west interstates and international gateways.
The strategy also emphasizes redundancy. Additional north-south transportation capacity can provide alternative routes when other major corridors are congested or disrupted while improving access between Mexican and Canadian manufacturing centers and markets in the central and western United States.
A key part of the ASREC strategy is connecting ports and other freight gateways directly to the corridor. Under the Alliance’s criteria, an ASREC Port may include a land, maritime or inland port, rail terminal, air cargo facility or intermodal logistics gateway. Criteria include connections to Future I-27, U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada trade, multimodal transportation, security, resilience and economic development.
Puerto Verde, a planned international trade crossing between Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and Eagle Pass, Texas, was among the projects discussed in connection with the ASREC strategy and the Alliance’s 57 to 27 vision. The project has received a Presidential Permit, an important step toward developing a new international trade connection between Mexico’s Highway 57 and the larger north-south trade corridor.
Bigger still, Puerto Verde has entered into an agreement with the Mexican federal government to invest more than $2 billion to improve Highway 57 to interstate standards, making Puerto Verde a Tier 1 crossing.
“The combination of the Mexican Highway 57 improvements and connecting the Puerto Verde Port to Future Interstate 27 will provide an alternate route for commerce and trade that will relieve already congested corridors like Mexico’s Highway 85 to Interstate 35,” Garduño said. “Who knows, maybe we can realize the dream of expanding the Pan-American Highway from Mexico through the Midwestern United States to Canada’s Trans-Canada Highway 1.”
The ASREC strategy represents the next phase of the Alliance’s work: not simply identifying a transportation corridor, but developing the connections, partnerships and infrastructure needed for the corridor to serve communities, businesses and international trade.
About the Ports-to-Plains Alliance
The Ports-to-Plains Alliance is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing transportation infrastructure and economic development throughout the Ports-to-Plains Corridor.
