Group Says Border ‘Express Lane’ Would Be a Boon for Both Sides : Trade: A similar program is used in Canada, but customs officials say it’s not practical for San Ysidro.

A newly formed group of San Diego and Tijuana business people are pushing for the creation of an “express lane” at the San Ysidro border crossing to facilitate trade in the region.

The lane, which would be open only to business people who pay a fee and who are “pre-inspected” by customs officials, would be modeled after a pilot customs program operating since March, 1991, at the U.S.-Canada border crossing in Blaine, Wash.

Proponents of the idea say the express lane is a good means of reducing the lengthy waits at the border that work to discourage business activities between San Diego and Tijuana. If the North American Free Trade Agreement is passed, and the pact stimulates trade along the border as expected, the delays will grow even longer, proponents of the lane say.

The Washington border crossing’s express lane is open to any business willing to pay a $25 annual fee and undergo a security check that constitutes “pre-clearance” by customs. Those paying the fee and passing the inspection are given a decal that entitles them to essentially be waved through the border.

Pushing the express lane concept is the Border Region Action Group, an organization formed in December to address issues that directly affect business on both sides of the border. Heading the list of issues is the border crossing and the lengthy delays, which are particularly annoying to business people who make one or more trips daily.

But the proposal for a similar lane in San Ysidro has run up against opposition from the U.S. Customs Service. The agency says the level of drug smuggling going on at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, which, with 60 million crossings annually, is the world’s busiest land border, makes an express lane impossible to adequately supervise.

Also, the assessment of a fee to use the express lane would give an unfair advantage to wealthy motorists, customs officials have said.

Jerry Martin, director of the San Ysidro crossing for the Customs Service, said the agency is constantly reviewing a steady stream of proposals for “special lanes that various special interest groups have pushed.”

“People want special lanes for handicapped, for schoolchildren, business people--it just goes on and on and on with the special consideration,” Martin said.

The agency recently determined that the interest group it most wants to reward with a special lane is car-poolers, he said. Three car-pool lanes have been open at San Ysidro since last year and are now used by 15% of all vehicle traffic, he said.

The car-pool lanes reduce traffic and “the level of pollutants” in the region, Martin said.

A customs official who asked not to be identified said a decal-based express lane system would not work at the San Ysidro crossing because of the high volume of counterfeit documents agents sort through.

“We have every walk of life smuggling drugs through this border,” the customs official said. “We are just concerned with maintaining the integrity of the program that would involve passing cars with minimal inspection.”

Moreover, the current state of technology does not support automated drug detection at a port with San Ysidro’s traffic volume, the source said.

But BRAG members say that adequate methods of enforcing the lane exist and should be tried.

“It’s hurting international business between the U.S. and Mexico. There are a lot of deals that don’t get consideration because somebody on one side of the border or other doesn’t want to sit waiting an hour or two and take time out of the day,” said Ernesto Grijalva, a San Diego attorney specializing in international business litigation who is a BRAG co-founder.

Tony Ramirez, vice president of Made in Mexico, a Chula Vista-based maquiladora consulting firm, said hundreds, perhaps thousands, of business men and women “go back and forth across the border once or twice a day and lose hours by so doing, resulting in a loss of commerce on both sides.”

Ramirez, who is a past vice president of the National Maquiladora Industry Council, a Mexico-based trade group, said San Diego and Tijuana business people he has talked with would be willing to pay a $25-a-month fee to finance additional personnel as well as drug-detecting dogs and machinery.

Ramirez says the operation of the lane would run at a surplus and generate funds with which the Customs Service could finance the construction and operation of additional lanes for other motorists, alleviating congestion overall.

Stopping short of advocating the express lane proposal, Edwin P. Cubbison, the U.S. consul general in Tijuana, said that “there is no question that the delays at the border are disincentives” to regional business.

“It affects the ability of Mexicans to go easily to San Diego and Chula Vista, and we are well aware of the large middle class in Tijuana that likes to do shopping up there and would go and spend more money than they do now if they weren’t deterred by the wait and uncertainty,” Cubbison said.

“It’s safe to say that delays in crossing the border are perceived by both the San Diego and Tijuana communities as an impediment to a broader commercial relationship,” he said.

Tina Kreisher, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) said the congressman is sponsoring a bill that would fund a third San Diego-area border crossing, a proposal that has gathered steam locally.