Glow-in-the-dark art: the answer for this San Ysidro bridge?

Twenty-four-year-old Angel Pantoja walks a steep pedestrian bridge over Interstate 5 in San Ysidro at least twice a day. For years, residents have complained the bridge’s curves and corners were too dark and filled with trash and human excrement.

But a unique and cost-effective solution in the form of a glow-in-the-dark ground mural makes Pantoja feel safer trekking the path.

The artwork stretches hundreds of feet of ground from Willow Road over a windy bridge cocooned by wired fence over the sounds of motorcycles and other fast-moving vehicles traveling north and southbound on the freeway.

Not only does Pantoja now feel safer walking on the bridge, he said it’s an “experience.” He works and lives in San Ysidro.

“I think all of them need art,” he said in Spanish, referring to pedestrian bridges. 

Caltrans shared this month that the transportation agency partnered with local residents and artists to bring the project, years in the making, to life. Construction workers finally executed the vision in May.

Nicholas Buenviaje, the government and community affairs manager for Caltrans’ San Diego region, said the project pilots a creative solution to make transit infrastructure and the community space work together better.

“A lot of people have told us, ‘Hey, it’s dark, this bridge is important but the conditions aren’t great.’ So we saw this as a small way to do something impactful,” he said.

He said this “pavement preservation product” cost less than $200,000, which compares far less to building new electrical infrastructure for lights. Plus, he said the product also helps lower ground temperatures, preserve the bridge surface and deter vandalism.

Cristian Fuentes, who chairs the San Ysidro Community Planning Group, said some problems still persist on the bridge, but it’s far less severe. 

He said he gave walking tours to local politicians and stakeholders to show the conditions and submitted a letter about a year ago requesting improvements.

“It might not solve the problem entirely, but basically, it provides a bit more lighting and attracts more people — especially the many children who cross that bridge to get to Willow Elementary,” he said in Spanish.

Neighbors agree.

Eddie Garcia, 33, walks his children across the bridge to Willow Elementary during the school year, which sits right at the end of the southern side of the bridge.

He lives in a mobile home community just a few hundred feet away from the bridge on the north side.

Before the ground mural, he said on the bridge he used to see people using drugs, sleeping on the ground and more trash. Now, he said the new mural has been a noticeable deterrent.

“Yes, it’s working, but I’d say maybe a bit more light — or something so it’s visible — because you can’t see much at night,” he said in Spanish.

San Ysidro high schooler Mizael Melgoza, 15, used the bridge when he attended Willow. Now he travels to a local shopping center.

“I never seen a bridge like that,” he said. “Last time it was really dirty and nasty, so I think it’s a lot better.”

Miguel Figueroa, who’s part of an homeless outreach team in the South Bay for PATH San Diego, said people living under and adjacent to the pedestrian bridge find this specific area safe.

Figueroa makes rounds in San Ysidro and recently learned of people living there. His team’s outreach has led to some progress. 

“After speaking with them, we understood that some of them are interested in programs, some of them are interested in shelter, and just getting some type of resource or service,” he told inewsource during a visit to the bridge Thursday morning. 

Ana Garcia Franco, 56, told inewsource that she set up camp there several months ago. Significant hardships led her to homelessness, including the death of her husband and substance abuse.

She’s one of the people who is accepting help from PATH. In the meantime, she greets pedestrians traveling up the bridge, even if they don’t respond. At night, she shares the same fears of walking a dark path.

“I like to be here, and I like to greet them because I don’t want them to feel scared,” she said.

Garcia Franco likes to paint and said she offered construction crews to help them with the mural project. None of them disturbed her encampment, she said.

“I feel like we are the intruders because the kids go through here for school and everything, and it’s not right for us to be here.”

Stakeholders attributed the art project’s inception to the cancellation of bus routes that many high school students relied on. In 2019, a massive budget deficit forced Sweetwater High School Union to cut the routes. It’s a fact that local stakeholders made sure to acknowledge on the walking path. 

Students are on summer break right now, but the new artwork will be ready for them to walk over when school resumes later this month.

The glowing idea is pulled from alebrijes, traditionally hand-carved and hand-painted wooden sculptures of animals with bright and colorful patterns and designs. In Mexican heritage, the sculptures represent mythical creatures and are thought of as guides into the afterlife. 

Ernesto Gonzalez, a volunteer artist with Blk Box who collaborated with Caltrans, pitched the idea. The end result is a design of colorful triangles layered under black stencils of cultural references: a kid striking piñata, a child with their grandparents, two children planting a watering tree, an indigenous-styled sun, a child walking with a backpack, two children playing a trumpet and guitar and a family holding hands.

Gonzalez grew up in San Ysidro’s Sunset neighborhood and used the bridge to go to the Las Americas mall. Gonzalez said the artworks honor students, business patrons, pedestrians using the trolley or anyone crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“We’ve made something, we’ve had some impact, and hopefully it’s just the beginning,” he said.

He wants to get permission to paint the sides of the pedestrian bridge and keep the theme going.