SUNDOG - 5-6-2007 at 01:33 PM
South County, Tijuana Leaders Double Stacking at Border Ports
Officials Study New System to Ease Wait Times
By MIKE ALLEN
San Diego Business Journal Staff
With wait times at San Diego’s two main border crossings running more than two hours on busy days, a regional group of organizations is offering a
solution federal officials are now testing: double stacking.
The concept is similar to what major retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart use to cut down on customer waiting times at checkout, installing a counter
behind an existing counter, or stacking them.
“Double stacking is an immediate remedy to alleviate some of the wait times that we can do right now,” said Cindy Gomper-Graves, executive director of
the South County Economic Development Council, a business advocacy group for four South Bay cities.
In fact, the concept has been floated before and is currently being studied by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that operates the
nation’s ports of entry.
“We’ve had a double stacked booth at the San Ysidro port of entry for the past six to eight weeks, and we’re evaluating it for potential use at the
new port of entry,” said Vince Bond, CBP spokesman for the San Diego field office. “We’re testing the concept, and in the process of gathering data to
see if we can improve processing times.”
Those times can vary widely, depending on the time of day and day of the week. The weekends in the afternoon hours tend to be the worst, and
three-hour wait times to traverse either at San Ysidro or Otay Mesa coming into the United States from Mexico are not that unusual, say regular
crossers.
“It’s erratic and it can vary from a half hour to more than two-and-a-half hours,” said Steve Otto, executive director of the San Ysidro Business
Association, which operates a business improvement district. “I crossed as a pedestrian last Sunday (April 29) around noon, and it took me over an
hour. It’s a function of how many booths are open and how many inspectors are working.”
The San Ysidro port of entry, said to be the world’s busiest with 24 gates, handles an average of 150,000 people daily, including 35,000 to 45,000
cars; 25,000 to 35,000 pedestrians; and 200 to 300 buses, said Bond.
To help the CBP in studying the possible short-term solution to excessive wait times, Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, has endorsed stacking and has
requested an additional $2 million in the 2008 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill.
In a letter dated April 25 to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Filner asked that the stacked
booths be implemented at both San Ysidro and Otay Mesa with the increased funding.
Calls to Filner’s office in Washington, D.C., and Chula Vista were not returned.
Bond was unaware of whether the double stacking plan had been reviewed at any other ports in the country, and referred the question to CBP’s main
office in Washington.
He said one problem with double stacking became evident when the first car in a lane hadn’t been cleared by an inspector, but the car behind it had
been. Because there isn’t enough space to pass, the car behind the first car simply has to wait, Bond said.