Issue - Case Study - Intervention

Issue

What Is This Place Today?

The San Ysidro Port of Entry is currently the busiest border crossing in the world with more than 26 million people crossing annually to absorb some of the local cultures. At present, there are two ports of entry servicing San Diego, California and Tijuana, Baja California. the one in San Ysidro provides pedestrian and vehicle access to both countries for visitors and commuters, no commercial traffic. This port of entry is connected to the San Diego Trolley on the U.S. side and has direct pedestrian and vehicle access to downtown Tijuana on the Mexican side. The other port of entry is in Otay Mesa, California. This border crossing services all commercial and industrial traffic as well as some ecommuter and visitor traffic. Crossing the border is often congested, time consuming, and can even be unsafe due to poor planning.

There are two airports located near the border just west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry approximately 1.25 miles apart. Brown Field on the U.S. side is a freight and cargo terminal only. This airport is a hub for commercial shipments coming in and going out of both San Diego and Tijuana. Rodriguez Airport or Aeropuerto de Tijuana is on the Mexiacan Side and is currently able to handle both domestic (within Mexico) and international Flights.

There is also a river, the Tijuana river, which slices through the central part of Tijuana before it crosses the border into the U.S. just west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry and empties into the Pacific Ocean.

Airports Wasted

San Diego International Airport is conveniently located just north of downtown San Diego, California. Unfortunately the city grew up around it leaving no room for expansion. The short runway and difficult ap-proach through the heart of the city precludes large planes from coming in from the east coast or internationally. Though it is an international airport, there is in fact very few direct international flights that go in and out of this terminal and there are few nonstop flights left to or from the east coast. Another problem for this airport is that there is no trolley stop within walking distance of the terminals. Public transportation in and out of this terminal is virtually nonexistent.

On the other hand, Rodriguez Airport in Tijuana does have the facilities to handle international flights. Unfortunately, due to a lack of interest and a time-consuming border crossing, that infrastructure is grossly underutilized.

Case Study

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, Texas is a city on the U.S./Mexico border that is shared with Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. This is an example of a border condition that really works because of a mutual desire for a strong trading link.

The El Paso District Office supervises nine ports of entry and three international airports. All ports of entry are full service and available to all travelers except for the Stanton Street Port of Entry which is a Designated Commuter Lane (DCL) and requires enrollment for usage.

Ciudad Juarez currently has the largest maquiladora employment concentration of any Mexican city with more than 200,000 workers. This high level of production at the border has made trade between the U.S. and Mexico increase over 200 percent in the past ten years. 20 percent of that overland trade comes in through El Paso.

Over the past five years, the city of El Paso has invested over 120 million dollars in air transportation facilities. With an interstate highway system providing east/west and north/south access, rail facilities servicing every North American market, and the newly renovated and expanded El Paso International Airport, El Paso has the transportation infrastructure that allows access to markets from coast to coast. These investments in passenger and air cargo infrastructure have created opportunities for existing and future borderplex commerce that are unrivaled on the U.S./Mexico border.

In a balanced development of aviation infrastructure in the past three years, El Paso has developed the border's largest air cargo complex. El Paso's air cargo has expanded from an annual volume of 38,000 tons in 1990 to a present day annual volume of over 100,000 tons. By the year 2010, air cargo volumes out of this airport will exceed 220,000 tons and they already have the infrastructure to accomodate these projected levels of cargo. El Paso's air cargo facilities and capabilities are a powerful economic tool for existing and future boirderplex businesses and is another factor making it the current best place on the U.S./Mexico border for transportation-intensive industries.

Air Links

The border's newest passenger terminal hosts nine airlines with non-stop flights to eighteen destinations, including eight major hubs with convenient connections linking El Paso to the Pacific Rim as well as Europe. El Paso airline capacity is substantial with approximately nine thousand scheduled airline seats in and out of the city on a daily basis. El Paso's air service is second to none on the U.S./Mexico border and is one of the many factors currently making it the best place of exchange between the U.S. and Mexico.

Intervention

What Could This Place Be?

What could this place be for the future? Forty percent of all growth in San Diego County over the next 20 years will be in the South Bay area, which is the region south of State Route 54 all the way to the border. Tijuana is expected to grow at five times the rate of San Diego. A more porous border with at least two more points of entry will allow for less wait time at the checkpoints and quicker access to links on both sides.

A bi-national airport, shared by both Tijuana and San Diego, would, in effect, also serve as a border crossing while connecting the existing freight terminal at Brown Field with the commercial airline terminal at Rodriguez Airport. This airport will provide domestic flight service within the U.S. and Mexico as well as handle international flights. San Diego International Airport at Lindbergh Field is currently the busiest single runway airport in the world and is operating at full capacity with no room for expansion. Given this need for another airport in the San Diego Area as well as the tremendous amount of growth projected for the South Bay area, the new bi-national airport will draw many more people from around the county to the border helping to foster a more positive view of Tijuana and the border.

An extension to the San Diego Trolley line will provide access to the new airport as well as linking it with other points within San Diego County. This new trolley line can also connect with Southwestern College, Plaza Bonita, SR-94/College Ave. area, and San Diego State University. Additional truck routes on both sides of the border will facilitate more rapid exchange of goods between San Diego and Tijuana while strengthening the link between the two cities.

Functional Airport

By creating a new airport terminal on the border with the capacity to accommodate regular international flights, San Diego will once again have direct linkage to the world. In doing so, this will facilitate a stronger trade connection between Tijuana/San Diego and the international market.