Driving to Rocky Point? Here are some improvements you'll see at the border, on the way to the beach

SONOYTA, Sonora – With spring break in full swing, Arizona and Sonora officials touted Monday efforts to make travel to and from the favorite Mexico beach destination of Rocky Point faster and safer.

Sonora and Arizona officials gathered in this Mexican community across the border from Lukeville to inaugurate a safety corridor along Mexico's Route 8, which leads to Rocky Point, also known as Puerto Peñasco. They also touted other improvements to help alleviate traffic jams for motorists traveling to and from the beach resort town.

Officials said there will be a greater law-enforcement presence on the highway, and zero tolerance for Rocky Point-bound drivers in violation of the state's traffic laws.

"This is a call (to drivers) to respect speed limits and to avoid driving while drunk because they will be penalized," said Adolfo Garcia Morales, Sonora's secretary for public safety.

Rocky Point cruise-ship port gets a new lifeline On the edge of Sandy Beach, at the base of the rocky formation that gave this city its name, a breakwater dock juts into the Gulf of California. Soon, Sonora state and local officials hope to make the dock a home port for cruise ships.

Helping Arizona motorists

In 2017, Arizonans made nearly 1.6 million visits to Rocky Point, according to Sonora officials. The number has been rising in recent years.

The two states' governors signed an agreement in December to create a permanent safety corridor mirroring those created by the Arizona Department of Transportation. Part of the effort includes Sonora's Department of Public Safety expanding its use of surveillance to track criminal activity.

Garcia Morales said his department has more than 110 surveillance cameras set up throughout Rocky Point, with an equal number in neighboring San Luis Rio Colorado, a growing border city and key gateway to the beach. Sonoyta, which is significantly smaller, has 20 surveillance cameras.

In addition to the enforcement and safety components, the initiative also provides assistance to Arizona drivers.

"During the busiest periods, there will be three points along the route, from Sonoyta to Puerto Peñasco, where tourists can clearly approach us and receive mechanical assistance, to ask for information on any matter, whether its health-related or about tourism," said Alberto Flores Chong, who coordinates Sonora's emergency response services.

Emergency crews will be at those points to respond to accidents.

For its part, ADOT plans to provide motorists on both sides of the border with real-time information on road conditions via Arizona's 511 system.

"We'll have it up and running, I would say, within a few weeks to a month," ADOT Director John Halikowski said.

Faster return to Arizona

What anyone who has driven to Rocky Point recently knows, is waits at the border, especially on Sundays and Mondays during the summer and on holiday weekends, have gotten longer as traffic backs up at the port of entry.

Traffic at the Lukeville-Sonoyta port of entry has soared in recent years.

Since 2013, the number of passenger cars crossing the border is up 33 percent, and the number of passengers has grown by 60 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has worked with Arizona to address the problem. Their solution: reversible lanes to move more vehicles in the direction of the traffic jam.

The Lukeville crossing typically has two southbound lanes and four northbound lanes. But in the past few weeks workers finished an upgrade that allows customs officers to switch direction on the southbound lanes.

"There are two lanes that are reversible," said Juan Ciscomani, a senior adviser to Gov. Doug Ducey and head of the Arizona-Mexico Commission. "And there's an additional lane that can be open that Sunday after the weekend of spring break or something, and they (CBP) can use that lane to go northbound."

One of the major reasons for the bottleneck, however, is the road in Sonoyta leading to the crossing pinches down to one lane for hundreds of yards.

But there have been some signs of improvement. At the same time U.S. workers made two southbound lanes reversible, workers on the Mexican side expanded the northbound port facility from two to three lanes to facilitate traffic.

Sonora infrastructure officials recognize that's not enough, but said they're working on pressuring the federal government, with the help of Arizona, to invest more in the region's ports of entry.

"We need to modernize our border crossings, this one without a doubt," Infrastructure Secretary Ricardo Martinez Terrazas said. "Our goal is to have the project fully approved by this year so that we can at least have the first phase done by 2019."

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