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Official says all southbound traffic to be routed through new facility

Written by Sandra Dibble | SDUT
3:37 p.m., June 8, 2012

For the 35,000 motorists who drive past San Ysidro into Mexico each day, life could soon change dramatically.

A high-ranking Mexican official said this week that President Felipe Calderón’s administration is holding firm to its plan to open the new, state-of-the-art El Chaparral port of entry by November and route all southbound vehicular traffic through that facility.

Sean Carlos Cázares Ahearne, deputy director general of border affairs for Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, said in an interview that “we will begin operations as soon as the port is finished in October.”

Cázares’ comments during a stop in San Diego laid out in the open a discussion that had taken place largely through diplomatic notes and behind-the-scenes negotiations.

“Leaving the current port open ... is not an option,” Cázares said, because within two months Mexico intends to start expansion of its northbound crossing lanes that lead into San Ysidro. The project involves turning the existing southbound lanes into northbound ones, he said.

To funnel vehicles to the new port, Cázares said Mexico will reroute all traffic through a temporary, five-lane connection that involves a sharp turn. Supporters and critics of this strategy are debating whether the curve will cause major traffic delays.

While applauding construction of the new facility, members of the Baja California business community have vigorously protested the plan to close the six existing southbound lanes this fall.

By relying solely on the temporary connection, “the biggest fear is that we will have a problem going into Mexico, and that will affect the economy on both sides of the border,” said Oscar Escobedo, a member of the Tijuana Economic Development Council and a former state tourism secretary. He is serving as spokesman for the private sector on the El Chaparral issue.

“Closing that down would be very unwise,” said Tijuana attorney José M. Larroque, co-chairman of the Smart Border Coalition, a binational group that advocates for more efficient crossings. “Certainly it would be a slap in the face to the Tijuana community if they decide to create that havoc on the border.”
Official position

Following a meeting in Mexico City, Baja California Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna Millán announced last month that he had received assurances from Mexico’s transportation secretary that the existing southbound lanes would remain open, even once the $28 million El Chaparral facility is inaugurated.

But Cázares said Mexico’s official position before the U.S.-Mexico Binational Bridges and Border Crossings Group — the body through which border crossings are negotiated — has remained unchanged. “Traffic will be diverted to El Chaparral through the Mexican corridor, and we will begin operations as soon as the port is finished in October,” he said.

Cázares said Mexico cannot afford to staff and equip two southbound crossings, so all resources will be sent to El Chaparral, which will have 22 inspection lanes and four bridges.

The U.S. State Department has declined to comment on negotiations concerning the overall El Chaparral issue.

Cázares said Mexico moved forward with its own temporary connection after the U.S. rejected Mexican proposals for access routes that crossed through U.S. territory.

The U.S. General Services Administration, or GSA, is studying the feasibility of a temporary connection with a curve that’s less sharp than the Mexican version. But even if that project gets the green light, it would not be finished until May 2013 — six months after the planned opening of El Chaparral.

‘Bad gamble’

El Chaparral, located just west of the U.S. port of entry at San Ysidro, is part of a massive binational reconstruction of the congested San Ysidro border crossing. Peak weekend northbound waits can last three to four hours at this port, the busiest on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The United States’ total price tag for its three-phase renovation is $583 million. Congress has approved money for the first phase — at $292 million — and construction work is well underway. The second and third phases, which include building a $121 million permanent connection to El Chaparral — have not been funded.

“On the U.S. side, the GSA took a bad gamble in setting their funding request calendar not knowing that a recession was going to hit,” said Jason Wells, excecutive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce. On the Mexican side, he said, the Calderón administration “is coming to a close, and this is a piece of the legacy” that it wants to inaugurate before the president leaves office. Cázares said a study by Mexico’s Communications and Transportation Secretariat shows no significantly long wait times with the temporary Mexican connection. That report said the peak waiting time on a standard day would be less than 29 minutes. In a worst-case scenario, it showed a wait of slightly more than 45 minutes.

The study has its skeptics, including Escobedo, the former tourism secretary, who said he responded “I don’t believe you” when someone showed him the report.

Mexico had proposed incorporating the permanent connection to El Chaparral into the United States’ first renovation phase for the San Ysidro port, Cázares said. When “it became evident” this would not happen, he added, “we started a dialogue for a temporary binational connection” — a road with lanes on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. government rejected that idea.

Last year, Mexican officials began to offer more alternatives, Cázares said.

One option involved routing southbound traffic down a road near the border — San Ysidro’s Virginia Avenue — so it could feed directly to El Chaparral. When the U.S. turned down that suggestion, Mexico proposed the trajectory now under review by the GSA.

But in case that choice also meets resistance, Mexico went ahead with planning for the temporary five-lane connection that runs entirely on the Mexican side of the border.


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If you look at the graphic below the article it appears that Customs and Border Protection will be screening all cars heading into Mexico by 2016. That is, if they ever get the thing funded...