September 2008 Much road construction is underway in Mexicali.

Traffic through Mexicali to San Felipe is moving very slowly now that major highway improvements are in full swing. If you are coming from the San Diego region, consider travelling via Tecate and taking the tollway to the junction of Mexico Route 5 (San Felipe highway). You will avoid all of the city construction problems. The same applies to your return journey. See more details here.

If you do come through the Calexico-Mexicali downtown port of entry, you will be diverted to the eastbound cross-city street Av. Madero. from there you can head south on Justo Sierra and Benito Juarez but the worst is still to come. A major flyover is being constructed at the intersection of Calzada Hector Teran Teran (the Tijuana road) and Highway 5. This is just south of the Costco store. Single line traffic is in force. This will be a real bottleneck during rush hour periods. On Wednesday at 2 p.m. it took 40 minutes to get through this junction. This junction is shown by the big red oval in the picture below. We suggest you follow the blue dots to bypass the junction - or even carry on east on Calz. Sanchez Taboda till the "Libramiento a Tijuana" appears and take that back to Route 5.

For those of you with iPhones, or a recent GPS, there are now street maps of the entire border area and even down to San Felipe (though with no maps of San Felipe at this time). Start here for Mexicali. Incidentally, the iPhone owners will be delighted to know that the latest Google maps, with the "gps position indicator", work well in northern Baja. You might want to load the route into your iPhone before you cross into Mexico to avoid data roaming charges. Alternatively, visit a wireless hotspot to get the latest map sections.

The map below shows the approximate route south through Mexicali. Construction at the junction of Lazaro Cardenas and Lopez mateos (red circle) is now complete.

Ignore the red construction circle on the map. The road is now clear.

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