"The issue is not that the river destroyed the embankment; the issue is that the bridge is not already working."

On April 14 of last year, an earthquake with an epicenter in Ensenada rattled Tijuana hard enough that the city closed its Simon Bolivar bridge. Eventually, it was determined that the bridge’s infrastructure was so badly damaged that it had to be torn down. The bridge connected the Via Rapida Poniente highway with the city’s two most populous districts, La Presa and La Presa Este. Authorities forecast that a new bridge would take six months to build, but that deadline has come and gone, and the project doesn’t seem to be nearing completion. As a result, rush hour traffic has become a permanent headache for the nearly half million people who live on that side of the city.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, the wallop of heavy rainfalls led to the collapse of a provisional embankment road that the city has been using to keep traffic flowing while the new bridge is under construction. For now, the municipality is working on the embankment rebuild, but there have been no announcements about when the construction will be over or when the road will be reopened.

Sonia Garcia works in San Diego but lives in the El Florido neighborhood. She says the time spent in traffic to get back home, together with the two hour wait time to cross the border, is affecting her physically and even emotionally. “I can’t believe I’m spending that much of my time coming back home,” she says. “When I cross the border early in the morning, I’m rested but after a full-time shift, I don’t want anything but get home — and it takes me three times more than usual. The issue is not that the river destroyed the embankment; the issue is that the bridge is not already working. If something like this would have happened closer to the downtown, it would be another story."

Francisco Javier has been a public transportation driver for 20 years, and he uses the road daily. Without the bridge and the embankment, his usual 25-minute trip has turned into 90 minutes or even more on Fridays, he says. “We get back home exhausted, and there’s no more left to play with the children, or if my wife wants to go out. Such a terrible situation. It affects us all, economically and physically."

Drivers earn their wages based on how many trips they can make in a day. Heavier traffic post-bridge closure means fewer trips, so they have to work overtime to make up the lost earnings. “This administration has opened new roads and we are thankful for that as drivers,” says Javier, “but it seems like there is no priority to this issue unless people protest and demonstrate. That’s the only way the government will look into it.”

Alberto Guitierrez has driven this route daily for the last 10 years, and describes the current traffic as “unbelievable.” He works near La Jolla, and so he must contend with border traffic as well as the mess in town. “It is just insane how much traffic we are having the last few years,” he says. “Whether the municipality is building a metro system or not, the roads need to be working, at least. This bridge is really important to connect downtown and the east. It’s unbelievable they haven’t gotten it done yet.”