At the construction site of the new Otay Mesa East border crossing, scores of workers on the Mexican side have been busy working on the structures needed to connect traffic as part of the long-awaited project.
On the U.S. side, the border crossing facility has yet to even rise from the ground.
The project is now facing yet another delay and isn’t expected to open until, tentatively, late 2027 — three years past the original completion date. While awaiting the green light to start construction, a number of agreements were approved Friday to move the project forward, including an amendment to a previous toll-sharing agreement between the two countries.
“There’s certainly a delay, but it’s not on the Mexican side,” Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila said at a news conference earlier this month.
In June 2021, top officials from California and Mexico signed an agreement pledging to work together to complete the project by the end of this year. In August 2022, officials from both sides of the border celebrated the project’s groundbreaking. But last year, San Diego officials acknowledged that the Otay Mesa East border crossing would tentatively open in 2026.
Once again, the project — over 20 years in the making — has been pushed back.
The San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, which is the project’s sponsor along with Caltrans, said the setback has to do with pending agreements with the federal government on operation and maintenance roles and responsibilities.
“The State of California, Caltrans, and SANDAG continue to negotiate with the federal government to solidify the final details of the port of entry itself,” SANDAG officials said in a statement. “But progress continues.”
“We have made several advancements, including the construction and completion of State Route 11, 7 new bridges, 3 interchanges, the installation of 17 miles of fiber optic cable, the relocation of international utilities, and the addition of 7 air quality monitors in the Otay Mesa area,” SANDAG officials added.
Caltrans and the region have invested $2.7 billion in the Otay Mesa area, SANDAG said, of which, $1.3 billion was for the SR-11/Otay Mesa East project. It is also expected that the project, which was deemed by officials as “a top priority and critical to our region’s economy, the global supply chain, and air quality,” will get more state funding in the near future.
SANDAG and Caltrans have been in discussions with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties. “The project sponsors are in negotiations with the federal agencies on the agreements needed to transfer the port to the federal government and its operation thereafter,” a CBP spokesperson said.
The agency added that discussions about staffing, design and technology requirements are ongoing and “subject to a multitude of evolving factors.”
Unlike the San Ysidro Port of Entry or the existing Otay Mesa Port of Entry, the new crossing — for both passenger and commercial vehicles — will require a toll, which should guarantee shorter wait times. Mexico and the U.S. will split the revenue.
Under a previous agreement with Mexico, the entire transaction would take place on SR-11 on the U.S. side, but that is expected to change.
Officials reported at a May SANDAG board meeting that the Federal Highway Administration raised concerns over whether that structure met certain regulations “that govern how you can use tolls on a federally funded highway like SR-11.”
“They were concerned that that could prevent us from sharing the tolls with Mexico and also from using the funds for certain non-surface transportation elements, like CBP and GSA’s operation and maintenance expenses,” said Betsy Blake, senior legal counsel with SANDAG.
The new amendment approved Friday by the board proposes a fully electronic toll system, in which the primary toll readers will now be located on the Mexican side and a secondary set on the U.S. side in case the primary ones fail or need to be taken offline for repairs. However, the actual toll transactions will be managed by SANDAG. The North American Development Bank will remain as the custodian and distributor of the toll funds.
The proposal is subject to Mexico’s approval.
U.S. revenue will be used for investments related to the maintenance, operation, or expansion of the project.
On June 27, SANDAG and Caltrans signed a memorandum of understanding with CBP and GSA that will allow them to fully design the port of entry and seek a contractor for pre-construction services, officials said.
SANDAG is awaiting approval from the federal government to proceed with construction. Once that happens, construction, which is expected to take about two years, could begin in late 2025.
María Rodríguez, project manager with SANDAG, said Friday that the agency will work with CBP and GSA to explore the possibility of a phased opening. “That means we will prioritize maybe opening for cargo first, and maybe later for passenger vehicles, or vice versa,” she said. “We are going to evaluate these options with a contractor next year. So it could be an opening earlier than 2027.”
Mexico aims to complete its portion of the project before the end of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six-year term in October.
In Baja California, officials are resigned to the fact that the U.S. is years behind opening, so they are already exploring options to use the newly built infrastructure on their side in the meantime.
Proposals on the table include asking the U.S. to allow southbound cargo to cross through the new roads, or diverting the line of northbound truck traffic toward the new port of entry.
