The pedestrian corridor at Cross Border Xpress, the existing Tijuana airport crossing that Baja California wants to complement with a new walkway. Photo: Vmzp85, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Baja California officials say they have land and have met with Cross Border Xpress managers about a new pedestrian crossing tied to the CBX terminal, but the plan still needs approval from U.S. Customs and Border Protection before anyone can say how, or when, it would work. San Diego Red reported Oct. 27 that Kurt Honold Morales, the state’s secretary of economy and innovation, described preliminary meetings with CBX and said the state had already secured land for construction. TJ Gringo, in an Oct. 31 review of that report and of a Oct. 30 Uniradio Informa story, said both outlets quoted Honold and that CBP approval is the next hurdle.
The two original accounts do not agree on exactly where the land sits. San Diego Red placed the proposed crossing next to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, beside the existing railway tracks, on part of a property belonging to INDAABIN, the Mexican federal agency that manages government real estate. TJ Gringo said Uniradio put the land “near CBX,” the existing cross-border airport terminal, and that Uniradio reported the state’s first priority is an agreement with CBP on how the crossing would operate and how project funds would be managed, followed by a work plan with the city of Tijuana. Uniradio also said part of the revenue would pay for lighting, cleaning and security around the border area, under a transparency mechanism that has not yet been set up, according to TJ Gringo.
Both San Diego Red and Uniradio, as summarized by TJ Gringo, said the state wants to look at adding Tijuana’s medical pass to the new crossing. San Diego Red said that could mean a designated fast-track lane for pass holders, to be evaluated with Tijuana’s city government. TJ Gringo noted that in September, Grupo Animal quoted Tijuana airport director Carlos Francisco Salgado de la Peña describing the project as still at an embryonic stage, and that no construction schedule, fees or opening date have been announced.
For now, nothing changes at San Ysidro, Otay Mesa or the existing CBX bridge. The proposal is a state-level plan that still has to clear U.S. customs officials and, on the accounts published so far, still lacks a public timetable.
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