A new airport terminal opening Wednesday will straddle both the U.S. and Mexico.
An investor group that includes Chicago billionaire Sam Zell built a terminal in San Diego with a bridge that crosses a razor-wire border fence to Tijuana's decades-old airport. Passengers will pay $18 to walk a 390-foot overpass to Tijuana International Airport.
The terminal is targeting the estimated 60 percent of Tijuana airport passengers who cross into the United States, about 2.6 million travelers last year. Currently, they must drive about 15 minutes to a congested land crossing, where they sometimes wait several hours to enter San Diego by car or on foot. The airport bridge is a five-minute walk to a U.S. border inspector.
The only other cross-border airport known to industry experts is in the European Union, between Switzerland and France's Upper Rhine region.
