State Route 11 (SR 11) is a

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either Route number, numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered ...

in the U.S. state of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The first phase of the highway opened in 2016, connecting SR 125 and SR 905 with

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...

Drive in the Otay Mesa area of

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

. It is planned to be extended from Enrico Fermi Drive to the proposed U.S.–Mexico border crossing at Otay Mesa East. There are also plans for an interchange at Siempre Viva Road and to convert the highway to a toll road once the entire route is completed. Planning for the road began in the 1990s, and construction started in 2013.

Route description

SR 11 is proposed to be a toll facility that will serve a new border crossing east of Otay Mesa, the

Otay Mesa East Port of Entry The Otay Mesa East Port of Entry is a planned border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, approximately two miles east of the existing Otay Mesa Port of Entry. The crossing will connect the Otay Centenario borough of Tijuana with East Otay Mes ...

. It will connect SR 125 and SR 905 to the

Corredor Tijuana-Rosarito 2000 Corredor Tijuana-Rosarito 2000, also Bulevar 2000, Boulevard 2000, Corredor 2000, is a freeway in northwestern Baja California connecting the Mesa de Otay area of eastern Tijuana with Rosarito Beach. long, it runs along the southeastern edge of t ...

corridor that connects to

Mexican Federal Highway 2D Federal Highway 2D (, Fed. 2D) is a part of the federal highways corridors (), and is the designation for toll highways paralleling Mexican Federal Highway 2. Seven road segments are designated Highway 2D, all but one in the state of Baja C ...

and

Mexican Federal Highway 2 Federal Highway 2 (, Fed. 2) is a toll-free part of the Mexican federal highway corridors () that runs along the U.S. border. The highway is in two separate improved segments, starting in the west at Tijuana, Baja California, on the Pacific ...

Tecate Tecate () is a city in Tecate Municipality, Baja California. It is across the Mexico–United States border, Mexico–US border from Tecate, California. As of 2019, the city had a population of 108,860 inhabitants, while the metropolitan area ha ...

, and

Mexican Federal Highway 1D Federal Highway 1D ( 1D, Fed. 1D) is a tolled () part of the Mexico Federal Highways, paralleling Fed. 1. There are two segments, one in the state of Baja California and another in the state of Baja California Sur. Baja California ...

Ensenada Ensenada ("inlet") is a city in Ensenada Municipality, Baja California, situated on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Located on Bahía de Todos Santos, the city had a population of 279,765 in 2018, making it the third-largest city in Baja Californ ...

. , the portion from SR 125 and SR 905 to Enrico Fermi Drive is completed. On that segment, plans were to construct two interchanges at Enrico Fermi Drive and Siempre Viva Road as the proposed route curves to the southeast before reaching the border crossing. SR 11 will operate as a toll road once the entire route is completed.

History

The former version of SR 11 was designated in 1934, running through the present-day Route 110 corridor in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. SR 11 was re-added to the state highway system in 1994. Four years later, several parties, including District 11 of the

California Department of Transportation The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is an Executive (government), executive department of the U.S. state of California. The department is part of the Government of California#State agencies, cabinet-level California State Tran ...

(Caltrans), the

City A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and

County A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

of San Diego, the

San Diego Association of Governments The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for San Diego County, California. It is an association of local county governments, with policy makers consisting of mayors, councilmembers, and Coun ...

, and

Tijuana Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...

were signatories to a Letter of Intent to build the border crossing. The route was added to the

California Freeway and Expressway System The California Freeway and Expressway System is a system of existing or planned freeways and expressways in the U.S. state of California. It encompasses both state highways and federal highways in California. It was defined by Article 2 (comme ...

in 1999. In 2009, Senate Bill 1486 was passed, and the presidential permit in 2008 allowed for the border crossing to be constructed. By the following year, several alternatives were considered to construct some or even none of the interchanges or remove the proposed toll on the route. State funding is allocated to cover much of the $400 million costs, not including the port of entry for another $350 million. The California Transportation Commission endorsed the project in January 2012, and approved the proposed freeway route that December.
Before being upgraded to a freeway between Britannia Boulevard and Siempre Viva Road, SR 905 directly connected with SR 125 via two at-grade intersections on Otay Mesa Road. When Caltrans opened that segment of the SR 905 freeway in 2010, they omitted the interchange with SR 125, forcing traffic on SR 905 and SR 125 to exit their respective freeways and use Otay Mesa Road (which SR 905 followed at that time) to make the connection. To help fix this problem, a direct freeway-to-freeway interchange was planned, which also included SR 11 once it was to be constructed, with construction beginning in late 2015. Ramps from SR 905 eastbound to SR 125 northbound, SR 905 westbound to SR 125 northbound, and SR 11 westbound to SR 125 northbound were completed on November 30, 2016, at the cost of over $21 million. Prior to December 16, 2021, traffic on southbound SR 125 was forced to exit onto Otay Mesa Road at that toll road's then southern terminus in order to connect to SR 11 and SR 905. Construction on the ramps for these connections began in 2018, with the ramps from SR 125 southbound to SR 11 eastbound and SR 125 southbound to SR 905 eastbound being completed on December 16, 2021, at the cost of $74 million. The ramp from SR 125 southbound to SR 905 westbound, which was still under construction at the time, was initially scheduled to open to traffic in 2023, but was instead opened to traffic on July 26, 2022, finally completing the interchange. There are no plans to construct the remaining connections from SR 905 westbound to SR 11 eastbound and SR 11 westbound to SR 905 eastbound.

Future

Plans are to construct the road in three stages: the interchange with SR 125 and SR 905 and the road to Enrico Fermi Drive, continuing the construction to the commercial vehicle facility, and building the border crossing itself. The first part of construction—connecting to SR 905—started on December 10, 2013, and was completed on March 19, 2016. The entire road was completed in 2017. Tolls are planned for the road in order to keep delays for crossing the border low, and this would vary depending on the current traffic at the other crossings in the area. The funds would go to both countries. The second phase, connecting to the future Otay Mesa East Port of Entry, began construction in August 2019 and was scheduled to be completed in late 2021. Construction of the port of entry was initially scheduled to begin in 2022 and finish in 2024, but has been delayed to at least 2026.

Exit list

References

External links