Clogged border lanes keep people, money out
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050623-9...
By Diane Lindquist
June 23, 2005
A new report by the San Diego Association of Governments says that the time people spend waiting at area border crossings is costing the San Diego
County-Baja California region $2.4 billion in revenue a year.
The bulk of losses ? $2.2 billion in direct and indirect impacts ? are felt by San Diego County businesses. Most border crossers are Baja California
residents who travel north for shopping or recreation, but when waits are too long, the report says, millions of trips aren't made.
In addition, if waits were shorter and more people crossed, companies on both sides of the border would have enough business to add an estimated
32,000 jobs, according to the study.
The report, released late last week, is the first effort to quantify the full dollar impact of border wait times on the region.
"This validates that the cross-border connection is significant to the San Diego and Tijuana economy," SANDAG executive director Gary Gallegos said.
The business losses, he said, are equivalent to the proceeds from six or seven Super Bowls or two convention centers. Job losses, he added, are
equivalent to employment at seven Qualcomm Stadiums.
Now that local leaders have data, they said they hope to influence local, state and federal officials to improve border efficiency.
"We've known this, but now we can show it," said Imperial Beach Councilwoman Patricia McCoy, who leads SANDAG's borders committee.
"Eventually we hope the federal government will have the wherewithal to put in the infrastructure that's so badly needed," she said. "It's really
important that we try to get things running smoothly."
Alfonso Bustamante, Tijuana's director of international relations, said the report underscores the importance of improving cross-border flow in both
directions.
"We're working to speed traffic north to south and south to north," he said.
There are plans to add both northbound and southbound lanes at San Ysidro and to build a new port of entry east of Otay Mesa, but neither project is
expected to be completed for several years.
Meanwhile, cross-border travel and trade have increasingly clogged the region's border crossings. More than 60 million trips are made each year across
the San Ysidro, Otay Mesa and Tecate ports of entry.
Inadequate staffing and enhanced security screening in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks have made waits longer. The survey estimated a daily average
of 45 minutes.
Things will only get worse, McCoy said, as the region's population expands and more San Diego County residents move to Baja California to find
more-affordable housing.
If delays increase an additional 15 minutes, the report found, losses would rise by $1 billion.
"We're pretty sure that if it went backward, that if the wait decreases 15 minutes, we'd be able to collect $1 billion more," SANDAG economist Marney
Cox said.
Moreover, the report says, if waits continue to grow during the next decade, annual revenue losses would grow to $3.15 billion and job losses to
74,000.
Despite the waits, Ives Lelevier, Baja California's deputy tourism secretary, said people still are willing to cross the border.
Baja California received the largest number of visitors last year since 1989, he noted, and the past Memorial Day weekend was its best in 15 years.
"For many of the leisure travelers, they include wait time as part of the experience. . . . Someone who has to go over (the border) will. If he can't
do it today, he'll do it tomorrow," Lelevier said.
"But we need to reduce border wait times. There's no question. We always want to have more visitors."
The SANDAG report is part of an overall project to gain a more realistic economic profile of the San Diego-Baja California border region.
The planning agency released information two months ago that revealed that more than half of crossers surveyed would be willing to pay a $3 fee to
speed their trip over the border. A report due out in the next few months will focus on the economic impact of border waits at commercial freight
crossings.
Not since 1993, when a survey by San Diego Dialogue determined that Mexican shoppers spent $1.3 billion on purchases in San Diego County, has hard
data been collected that quantified the cross-border relationship.
SANDAG's reports are based on 3,600 surveys completed by border crossers at the San Ysidro, Otay Mesa and Tecate ports of entry from mid-November to
mid-December of last year and mid-January to mid-February of this year.
Responses were submitted before the agency's recent addition of two SENTRI lanes. The San Ysidro port of entry now has four of the fast-pass lanes for
pre-screened crossers.
The surveys were taken at all times of the day from those in the passenger vehicle, SENTRI and pedestrian lanes, said Elisa Arias, who managed the
project in consultation with a panel of experts from universities and business chambers on both sides of the border and the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.
Economist Khalid Bekka of HLB Decision Economics used information from the responses to create an econometric model that, in addition to evaluating
the current data, will be used to update them in the future.
The $2.4 billion in annual revenue losses was based on people's responses to questions about how long of a wait would discourage them from crossing.
Based on their responses and comparison with data on wait times, it was determined that 10 million potential crossings are not made annually, and the
figure could top 23 million in the next decade.
People also were asked how much they would spend on such trips. Those are considered direct impacts, and they could be as simple as a coffee shop
selling fewer cups because it has fewer visitors. However, the losses grow when economists factor in multiplier impacts such as the coffee shop buying
fewer beans, hiring fewer people and paying less in taxes.
Similarly, the report calculated the job-loss figure at 32,000 based on retail sales. Economic formulas predict that a greater level of retail sales
results in a more employment.
Alan Gin, a University of San Diego economist who publishes an index of leading economic indicators for San Diego County, said the difficulty in
gaining valid data is in getting accurate responses from people when they are asked about a hypothetical situation such as how long of a wait would
prompt them to stop crossing the border.
"If they got good data, it would be legitimate to do some econometric model and come up with a number. It sounds like a valid way to try to estimate
that," he said.
About 15 percent of the people surveyed crossed the border to get to jobs or work-related activity, while more than half were making the trip for
shopping and recreation.
Direct and indirect impact revenue losses north of the border amount to an estimated $2.2 billion, about 1.2 percent of San Diego County's total
annual gross domestic product, the report says. Job losses north of the border amount to more than 31,000, about 1.7 percent of San Diego County's
labor force.
By far those most affected by border waits are retail stores in San Diego. Their losses were estimated at $2 billion. Food and lodging establishments
north of the border are hit next hardest, followed by recreation and entertainment enterprises.
In Baja California, the economic effect is much smaller.
The report says revenue losses total about $170 million annually, 2 percent of the Tijuana/Tecate region's output, with more than 1,300 jobs lost.
Food and lodging establishments suffer most on the Mexican side, then recreation and entertainment businesses and, finally, retail operations.
Gallegos said SANDAG is starting to share the information in the report with policy makers at the local, state and federal levels.
"Over the next few years," he said, "it might drive legislative agendas and facilitate the development of more border crossings."
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