By Estephania Baez
The new pedestrian border crossing west of San Ysidro, Pedwest, which was scheduled to be inaugurated in June of this year will most likely not be open to the public until later than the scheduled due date due to a delay in the delivery of resources by Mexican authorities.
“Currently, there are two lanes available in the Chaparral border crossing for pedestrian traffic. In order to open Virginia Avenue, three are needed because it is north to south, south to north and a lane for returnees. So the problem is now creating a new lane.
The Mexican government has assigned the funds, however, they will be available until September of this year, even though the agreed upon date was June,” noted Jason Wells, Director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce.
“Everything began with the rebuilding of the San Ysidro border, but a pedestrian crossing was not anticipated in the renovation, the community requested it and so we discussed it with the Federal government who approved our proposal to add another pedestrian crossing, so we will now have two, which is great for coming in and out of the United States,” said San Diego Councilmember David Alvarez.
Given that it is still unknown whether this new crossing will be completed by the agreed upon date, authorities may not begin with the renovation of the existing pedestrian crossing; more than 25,000 people cross this port of entry daily. Therefore, having access to a second entry would expedite travel time significantly.
While travelers might see their travel times affected by the late opening of the border crossing, California’s economy will be suffering great financial blows.
“If work starts until September, there will be losses of up to $750,000 per each delayed month. Baja California’s Governor has proposed a temporary border entry that would be accessible in June and we support this proposal,” added Wells.
According to the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, this would be the only port of entry between Mexico and the United States that is planned to have lanes going in both directions.
The second phase, which will focus entirely on pedestrian crossing going north on what is now the present crossing; we would be demolishing the last part of the last old building, we would be building another one that is broader, and much more decent, with twice the amount of inspection booths as well as disabled persons and bicycle booths, and with this, we would conclude the three phases,” added Ramon Riesgo, southern border project director for the U.S. General Services Administration.
The renovation project of the San Ysidro Border consists of three phases. The first phase is building the primary, secondary lanes, Administration Building and San Ysidro Pedestrian Bridge. The second phase is the construction of the new Pedestrian crossing Pedwest, and the third phase connects Interstate 5 directly to the Chaparral border crossing complex into Mexico, as well as plans to reinstate the old entrance to Mexico, reactivate the booths and adding them to the 25 existing one to make a total of 33.
The project whose work began more than three years ago consists of three phases and has an approximate cost of 735 million dollars.
“This is new in both north and south directions of what is presently known as the U.S. side Virginia Street since the western side of the San Ysidro community has a commercial area that is rather important and is the reason why we decided to move forward a phase and better service the community,” Pointed out Ramon Riesgo.
The new pedestrian crossing has a budget of $8 million in operating costs, which were obtained from the San Ysidro border renovation construction project funds. It is estimated that Pedwest will see twice the amount of pedestrians than the present border crossing.
Pedwest is planned to have 10 pedestrian lanes, eight for traffic traveling north and two reversible ones to go either north or south.