A familiar site from Chula Vista, Otay Mesa or Tijuana’s Mesa de Otay, Otay Mountain rises beyond Kyocera’s mammoth solar panel manufacturing facility under construction last year just south of the U.S./Mexico border. The completed facility opens this year.

For the past 15 years, federal officials seemed to move forward on plans to reconfigure and expand the San Ysidro port of entry at the pace of the slow traffic inching north toward the inspection booths. Now, as long wait times at the San Diego-Tijuana border reach economy-damaging levels, the proposed improvements are finally on the fast track.

With strong support from local, state and federal officials, nearly $200 million for the upgraded port of entry has been included in the current federal budget. Of that amount, $38 million was requested by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) for planning and land acquisition. Congress also approved an additional $160 million so that construction could start this year.

“It was like asking for a bicycle for Christmas and getting a BMW,” says Hector Vanegas, borders program manager for the San Diego Association of Governments.

The funding bonanza has federal officials scrambling. They are required to begin spending the funds by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year, even though construction previously was scheduled to start in June 2009. With some planning and environmental studies yet to be finished, the GSA, which is in charge of the development, had to find ways to get the project rolling.

To make that happen, Vanegas says that GSA and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, which operates the port of entry, came up with early options. For instance, officials found they could move an employee parking lot out of the secondary inspection area. The new lot will soon be installed at the Virginia Avenue site formerly used for commercial inspections. The change will help ease wait times by freeing up space for cars pulled aside for more thorough inspections. At present, when the secondary inspection area is full, says Vanegas, U.S. border officials do the time-consuming inspection in the primary lanes, causing further delay for cars waiting behind.

The parking lot relocation is only a small part of a border redevelopment project that will cost an estimated $577 million and represent the first major improvement at the San Ysidro border crossing since 1973. The existing 24 northbound lanes will be expanded to 29 or as many as 36 depending on how the border crossing is reconfigured. Tandem booths will be installed to increase inspection capacity. To make room for the new gates, lanes and other buildings, southbound traffic would be rerouted at the border, entering Tijuana at Virginia Avenue, where commercial inspections were conducted. In addition, a second pedestrian border crossing may be built on the east side of the port, if the Mexican government agrees. Vanegas said it would enable trolley riders to cross into Tijuana without having to walk over the southbound traffic lanes to the current entry point.

The San Ysidro reconfiguration and expansion project will be divided into three phases. The first will focus on improving northbound traffic capacity and acquiring property for later development. The second will involve rebuilding aging buildings and other border infrastructure. The third phase encompasses southbound traffic improvements and the renovation of a historic port building. GSA officials estimate that the entire project is due for completion no later than 2014 and possibly earlier.

Meanwhile, Sandag and the California Department of Transportation are forging ahead with plans for a third San Diego-Tijuana border crossing about two miles east of the existing Otay Mesa port of entry. The $550 million public-private plan would be funded with non-federal public and private funding, although the completed port-of-entry facility would be turned over to federal officials to operate.

The new border crossing plan calls for construction of State Route 11, a toll road to be completed at the same time as the border crossing. Mexico has already designated 70 acres for roads and facilities on its side of the border, says Vanegas, adding that the goal is to complete the road and border facility in five to 10 years. The California Transportation Commission recently gave the project a boost by allocating $75 million in seed money to help attract private investment.

The border crossing expansion projects come none too soon, regional experts say. The San Ysidro port of entry is the busiest land-based border crossing in the world, with daily traffic averaging 50,000 vehicles and 25,000 pedestrians. But congested conditions discourage millions of other legal visitors from crossing — visitors who shop, dine or do business at their destination. According to an economic model developed by Sandag and Caltrans, the reduction in cross-border traffic caused by long wait times cost San Diego County $3.3 billion in 2007. Tijuana lost out on $1.7 billion.