Mayor launches long-neglected Río Tijuana bike-lane rehab

Tijuana Mayor Ismael Burgueño Ruiz on May 23 kicked off rehabilitation and expansion work on the Río Tijuana bike lane, a corridor city officials and local media said had gone 16 years without major upkeep. The project revives infrastructure first built in 2010 under former mayor Jorge Ramos Hernández, now a local lawmaker, and adds new connection points along the route. City-backed accounts and local press reports said the work is intended to improve conditions for cyclists and other users in Zona Río. Burgueño said at the launch that the project addresses what he called a long-standing gap in non-motorized mobility infrastructure in the city. ### How much of the bike lane is being rebuilt? The city said the project includes rehabilitation of an existing 3.3-kilometer stretch along the Río Tijuana canal. The work also includes new access ramps at Puente México and Puente Márquez de León to improve connectivity and entry points for users, according to La Jornada Baja California’s report on the launch. (zetatijuana.com) More than 50,000 people are expected to benefit from the project, according to reports citing the municipal event. Those reports described the works as both a rehabilitation and an expansion, though the public descriptions available so far focus on repairs to the existing corridor and the added ramps rather than a longer new route. (jornadabc.com.mx) ### Why is the city describing the route as long neglected? Zeta reported that the Río Tijuana bike lane had been left “in the olvido” for 16 years before the May 23 start of works. That framing ties the current project back to the corridor’s original construction in 2010 during the administration of Jorge Ramos Hernández. A separate Zeta report published in 2025 said rehabilitation of the Zona Río bike lane had been held up for months because the city’s urban administration office had not issued authorization. (jornadabc.com.mx) That report said the broader corridor was about 12 kilometers long and that planned investment was 120 million pesos, though those figures were reported before the current launch and were not repeated in the May 23 event coverage. (zetatijuana.com) ### Who is involved besides the mayor? Burgueño said the work was developed in coordination with the Consejo de Desarrollo Económico de Tijuana, or CDT. La Jornada Baja California reported that the council collaborated on the project’s design and management. Ana Alicia Meneses Martínez, the CDT’s executive president, said the project had depended on “leadership, will and, above all, teamwork,” according to the same report. (zetatijuana.com) Burgueño also said the Instituto Metropolitano de Planeación, or IMPLAN, had played a key role in pushing a project aligned with the city’s sustainable mobility goals. (jornadabc.com.mx) ### What work will people actually see on the corridor? La Jornada Baja California said the project includes cleanup, signage, lighting and safety improvements along the urban corridor in addition to the bike-lane rehabilitation itself. Burgueño said the aim was to improve conditions of safety, inclusion and accessibility for people using the route. (jornadabc.com.mx) The same report said the city sees the corridor as part of a broader mobility network and described a long-term goal of linking the route with cycling infrastructure being developed in San Diego County. That cross-border connection was presented by municipal participants as an objective for the project, not as a completed link. ### What comes next after the launch? (jornadabc.com.mx) The next visible phase is the on-the-ground rehabilitation of the existing canal-side segment and construction of the two ramp connections at Puente México and Puente Márquez de León. Public reports on the May 23 launch did not give a completion date or final budget for the work. Municipal officials and project partners are expected to oversee the corridor improvements as construction advances in Zona Río. (jornadabc.com.mx) IMPLAN and CDT were named by event coverage as key participants in the project’s planning and coordination.