Proposed 3rd San Diego/Mexico border crossing gets federal fast track

Proposed 3rd San Diego/Mexico border crossing gets federal fast track Bush administration efforts to quickly process a permit request to open a third U.S./Mexico port-of-entry near San Diego could see approval of the proposed plan before summer 2008, according to San Diego officials recently returned from a Washington, D.C. trip.
   U.S. State Department officials gave 'a very solid assurance that we are moving in the right direction to get a permit much sooner” than previously expected, perhaps as soon as the first half of 2008, San Diego City Councilman Jim Madaffer, chairman of the area's regional planning transportation committee, told Copley News Service.
   The permit, which requires U.S. and Mexican presidential approval, is a required first step in building the proposed port-of-entry and highway border crossing in East Otay Mesa. Regional officials want the border crossing built to relieve heavy daily congestion at the two existing crossings in San Ysidro and Otay Mesa.
   While obtaining the permit does not guarantee the border crossing will be built, San Diego officials said it would help to move forward other required steps in the construction, such as obtaining funding and approvals from nearly half a dozen federal agencies.
   The San Diego delegation, comprising more than three-dozen business and elected officials, visited lawmakers in Washington, seeking federal assistance with regional issues such as local transportation projects, health care, and homeland security.
   The issue of border crossing congestion was a major topic for the city's representatives. The two existing crossings are some of the busiest in the nation, with waits at the current Otay Mesa crossing — where nearly 1.5 million trucks and 12 million autos transited in 2006 — sometimes lasting for up to four hours. A recent regional planning study found that delays at the existing crossings cost the two nations just over $7 billion a year and more than 60,000 jobs.
   The proposed port of entry would be built about two miles east of the current Otay Mesa crossing in an unincorporated area. Regional planners, still lacking a dedicated funding source, are considering making the proposed $360 million highway connecting the crossing to area freeways a toll road. A required environmental study on the highway portion of the crossing plan is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, and construction is not likely to start before 2012.