TIJUANA A Ready Lane will begin operating next Tuesday at the San Ysidro border crossing, the city government announced.
The program is to begin as the number of northbound crossers increases to go shopping or visit family and friends for the holidays.
The Ready Lane is a binational effort since access to it begins in Mexican territory, where signage is located and where Mexican patrol officers try to keep the traffic moving smoothly.
David Navarro, who heads the city's department of urban development and ecology, said that the lane will be open 24 hours a day and will use lanes eight to eleven.
The lane will be on the right side of the crossing, near the Sentri lane. Motorists may reach it from the Vía Rápida Oriente and avenida Padre Kino, in the Río zone.
The Ready Lane program is a tool to help reduce the wait time to cross, which can stretch to three or more hours during peak times.
As is the case at the Otay Mesa port of entry, travelers who want to use the Ready Lane in San Ysidro must have one of the newer U.S. travel high-tech travel documents enabled with RFID technology. These include the new permanent resident card ("green" card) and the passport card.
A few feet before travelers reach the inspection booth, they hold up their travel document so a device can "read" it.
By the time the traveler reaches the booth, the inspector will know who the traveler is and will be able to process him or her faster.
"The goal of the program is to cut the wait time for each vehicle by at least 30 percent," Navarro said.
He said that Tijuana patrol officers will help travelers reach the Ready Lane at the San Ysidro port of entry, considered the world's busiest land crossing.
An average of 50,000 vehicles pass through San Ysidro daily, pushing wait times to more than two hours at a time, sometimes as long as three or longer. An expansion and remodeling project is under way that when completed will increase the number of lanes from 24 to 62.
Omar.millan@sandiegored.com
