A few moments ago, Sidney Aki, Director of San Ysidro and Otay Mesa Points of Entry of the U.S Customs and Border Protection, offered a press conference to inform citizens of the new Ready Lane for pedestrian border crossing.

There were 8 kiosks installed to facilitate crossing and make it faster. How? Travelers scan their own documents before getting to the customs inspector, this saves inspectors the time they took to manually scan each document and input information.

There will be agents helping people with any questions they have about how to use these kiosks, it is really easy, you only need to input your card and the officer will call you by your name and ask you any pertinent questions.

This pedestrian access has already been up and running for several days, approximately since Thursday, however it was only as a trial period, today was the official opening for this type of access. The Ready Lane will be operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, any traveler older than 16 years of age will need to use their required documentation for it to be scanned, the documentation includes:

Passport cards, Residential cards expedited since 2008, fast card and Sentri, only these cards have the technology compatible with the kiosks themselves.

Currently around 30% of the vehicular traffic at the San Ysidro Point of Entry uses Ready Lane.

It is estimated that approximately 25 thousand people cross this point of entry daily by foot, and with this new access and technology the crossing times should be dramatically reduced.

What do you think about the improvements made? Will you be using this technology to cross to the States?

joy.ruvalcaba@sandiegored.com

daniel.aguilar@sandiegored.com