San Ysidro’s transit center upgrades take shape on paper, still years away from completion

About 90,000 people a day enter the U.S. from Mexico through the San Ysidro border crossing to go to work, buy and sell goods, or visit family and friends. Of these commuters, about 14,000 use San Ysidro’s public transit station. 

Among them is Natalie Gomez, a San Diego State University student who commutes to school from her home in Tijuana. At peak times, she said, trolley cars are often packed wall-to-wall with passengers.

“The trolley will be delayed because the doors won’t close because there’s a lot of people,” Gomez said.

To meet the demands of travelers using the station, the city of San Diego is planning to add an additional trolley track, more bus bays, protected bikeways and more complete sidewalks and pedestrian crossings to the transit station. But the realization of that vision is still years away and so is the funding to complete it.

“Physically speaking the station is incredibly small for the amount of demand that it’s facilitating,” said Zachary Hernandez, a regional border planner with the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, during a transportation committee meeting earlier this month. 

The city has plans for the station to become one of SANDAG’s future “mobility hubs” – centralized transit connection points.

SANDAG is considering three different plans, with slightly different configurations. Once one is chosen, the agency’s goal is to complete the improvements by 2035. 

San Diego Councilmember Vivian Moreno, who represents San Ysidro, said the transit center acts as a backbone for travel both internationally and across San Diego.

“It’s not just an MTS issue; it’s not just a local issue. This is a state issue; this is a federal issue; this is an international issue,” Moreno said. 

Moreno said she hopes that improvements to the transit center will allow for a “greener and more accessible way” for all people who use the station to travel around San Diego. 

Similar considerations surrounding upgrades to the transit center have been previously proposed and continually postponed. In 2014, SANDAG proposed improvements which would have cost as much as $150 million, but funds were never allocated for the project. 

Despite the station’s Blue Line having the most riders of any light rail in the country, unkept promises have continued to dog San Ysidro’s transit center. The Blue Line, which runs from San Ysidro to La Jolla and has more than 30 stops, averages 67,000 passengers each day, according to SANDAG.

Gomez says that it can be draining using the transit center, located at the Blue Line’s southern end, nearly every day due to consistent delays. 

Traffic and congestion in the area are well-known problems.

In July 2021, SANDAG accepted $1.25 million in funding from the Metropolitan Transit System to study how to improve bus and trolley efficiency and pedestrian walkways to navigate through the tightly packed neighborhood surrounding the transit center.

While the transit station improvements are considered in SANDAG’s short-term plans, the agency also has “long-term” projects planned, such as a Purple Line that would connect San Ysidro to Sorrento Valley.

“While we have a responsibility to plan for the long-term, we also have an existing system that needs improvements and upgrades,” Hernandez said.

SANDAG’s short-term plan would add another trolley track at the station, allowing the current Blue Line to make stops more frequently as well as add a bus-only lane on East San Ysidro Boulevard.

The additional trolley track is one way SANDAG and MTS are approaching solving the delays that the transit center faces. For commuters like Gomez, these delays can often add significantly to their travel time. 

Her commute from the border to SDSU, about 30 minutes by car, usually takes about an hour and a half. Gomez says that she has recently started carpooling with friends to her university campus when she can to avoid the long travel times. 

While MTS helped with the costs of the planning stage for the San Ysidro upgrades, funding has not been allocated for construction of the project. SANDAG says it hopes to raise funding through local, state and federal sources. SANDAG relies on federal funding for 36% of their overall budget. 

Moreno said that national, international and economic issues make estimating the costs of the project challenging, and so her focus is to create the most effective plan to benefit the community and then advocate aggressively for that plan to be funded and implemented. 

“We’re going to have to get really competitive, and we’re going to have to get a lot of state funds – California transportation funds – that’s absolutely an avenue that I’m going to be looking for, and also federal funding,” Moreno said.

MTS also just launched Route 910, the first overnight service running from San Ysidro to downtown San Diego. 

For long-term plans, SANDAG hopes to introduce an intercity train line, such as a Coaster or Amtrak line, as well as a cross-border trolley. They also plan to upgrade signage and restrooms, as well as introducing more shops and space for community events.