The Cross Border Xpress saves people that are traveling through the Tijuana International Airport so much waiting time from the border. Photo by Natalie Mosqueda
Planet Earth’s busiest border crossing is la línea drawn on the ground between Tijuana and San Diego. According to U.S. General Services Administration, an average of 50,000 vehicles and 25,000 pedestrians cross la frontera at San Ysidro, while at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, 18,000 vehicles and 3,500 pedestrians cross every day.
A new crossing option, the 390-foot Cross Border Xpress (CBX) skybridge, opened in December for pedestrians heading in or out of Tijuana’s Abelardo L. Rodriguez International Airport. CBX Chief Commercial Officer Elizabeth Brown said for $12 per trip or $24 for a round-trip ticket, the skybridge will greatly shorten the often-grueling border crossing.
What remains to be seen is whether Southwestern College will take advantage of the new crossing option. So far the answer seems to be no.
Francisco Alvarez, 19, an administration of justice major, said he crosses the San Ysidro border on foot to get to school. Alvarez said he has to wake up at 4 a.m. in Tijuana to get to his 7 a.m. class in Chula Vista.
Despite having a Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) pass, Alvarez said the journey is still a struggle because he has to deal with people heckling him as he crosses.
“With SENTRI I don’t have to stay in line too much, but I hate it when people who don’t know I have SENTRI scream insults at me as I walk by them because they think I’m cutting in line, so sometimes I have to scream back,” he said.
Alvarez takes the Blue Line Trolley to the H Street trolley station to catch a bus to school. Alvarez does not plan to use the CBX soon because he does not travel frequently for pleasure.
Paola Saenz, 19, a child development major, said she gets up before 7 a.m. to have ample time to cross through the Otay Mesa border to get to her 10 a.m. class on the main campus. Even though Saenz said she lives far from the Otay Mesa crossing, she chooses to cross there because she said it is quicker. Her family has been crossing through Otay Mesa for years, she said. Even though she has access to the Ready Lane system and commutes to school by car, wait times at Otay Mesa are unpredictable and hover between two to three hours, she said.
“Every day when I get back to Tijuana, that’s the most tiring part because the wait time on the way back is long and I get home and all I want to do is sleep, but I have to get home and do homework and study,” Saenz said. “In the end all this effort me and my parents put into my education will help me have a better future, so I have to take maximum advantage of the opportunity.”
Juan Jimenez, a businessman from Sinaloa who travels weekly into the U.S., said the CBX bridge was meant for people like him.
“I used to cross through San Ysidro and sometimes there would be a wait time of two to three hours to cross the border,” he said. “This bridge saves you a lot of trouble because you don’t have to go anywhere, just take the bridge and cross.”
Brown said the CBX represents a positive international relationship. CBX was designed in collaboration with the Canadian company Stantec and the late Ricardo Legorreta, a prolific Mexican architect. Construction was a collaboration between the Mexican firm Grumesa S.A. de C.V. and two American construction firms, Turner Construction and Hazard Construction.
“This building is really cool because it’s kind of like your NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) building right?” Brown said. “You’ve got your architect from Canada with bases in the U.S. and then you’ve got this Mexican architect that did the aesthetic, so it’s kind of like a true representation of many cultures.”
