By Jennifer Van Grove
The San Diego Union-Tribune
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) The Uber empire keeps on growing. Today the ride sharing giant added a new service called Passport which will offer one-way rides from San Diego into Mexico. Yes, that’s right, no return trip. Travelers trying to get back into the U.S. will have to take an Mexican Uber to the border, walk across and then take an American Uber back home.
SAN DIEGO
Your next trip to Mexico could be just a push of a button away.
On Friday, Uber will launch Passport, its first cross-border service, offering one-way transportation from San Diego across the San Ysidro border to anywhere in the northern Baja California region, which extends as far south as Ensenada and as far east as Mexicali. The new service offers travelers an alternative to buses, commercial cabs or simply walking across the border.
“It’s very exciting for us because there are a lot of places where we could have launched a cross-border product, but we recognize the importance of the largest border crossing in the world and the unique relationship between San Diego and Tijuana,” said Christopher Ballard, general manager for Uber in Southern California. “These are cities whose families, cultures and economies are closely linked.”
The cross-border trips are only available through Uber’s black car option, which costs more than UberX rides but all participating drivers will be commercially licensed and properly insured.
Passport riders can expect to pay a $20 convenience fee on top of per-mile and per-minute rates, in part to make the trek worthwhile for drivers. A trip from downtown San Diego to the Tijuana airport, for instance, will cost around $100. Fares can be split between up to four passengers.
The program is designed to ease transportation for a swath of locals already commuting between the two nations. Roughly 50,000 people have historically taken an Uber ride from the San Diego area to the border.
“We saw that over the course of a month that there were multiple trips beginning and ending on both sides of the border,” said Ballard. “People were organically choosing Uber to go from San Diego to the Tijuana border and vice versa.”
Before Passport, a passenger would need to end an Uber ride in the U.S., cross the border on foot and then e-hail an Uber pickup in Tijuana, where the company also operates.
And, in fact, the stop-and-get-out process must still be repeated in reverse. Passport may offer commuters a potentially easier way to get to Mexico, but it offers no uninterrupted way to get back because the service is limited to southbound crossings.
Passport riders will need appropriate documentation, such as a passport for U.S. citizens.
Although the service won’t remove border-crossing obstacles, city leaders are optimistic that Passport can strengthen the ties between San Diego and Tijuana, already considered sister cities.
“Our economies are linked. Our businesses are linked. Yet our infrastructure isn’t,” said Paola Avila, vice president of international business affairs for the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“We depend on a reliable workforce that can get to work every day,” she said. “This is an affordable option that increases efficiency and reduces commute time. And companies might look at including (Passport) as an employee benefit.”
Beyond assisting the more than 70,000 workers already crossing between San Diego and Tijuana each day, Avila expects Passport to serve as a boon for tourism. San Diegans, she said, may be more inclined to shop and dine in Tijuana, or visit destinations such as the Valle de Guadalupe wine country, if they know they can rely on the familiar brand name of Uber to get around.
Uber may not offer a northbound border-crossing option, but those who visit Baja California can continue to electronically hail rides in and around the region just as they would stateside, despite questions of legality.
“App-enabled transportation is not contemplated in current regulations in either the city of Tijuana or Baja California,” Ballard said. “The team is working with government authorities on modern regulations.”
The company also recently launched a new option in Tijuana to connect English-speaking riders with English-speaking UberX drivers, which should help ease the transition for Americans.
There is, at least, one potential downside to the program. If overly successful in boosting cross-border travel, Uber’s Passport service could contribute to already lengthy northbound wait times, which have been on the rise despite the ongoing expansion of San Ysidro’s Port of Entry.
Presumably, more people entering Mexico will equate to more people returning to the U.S., where wait times range from a few minutes to several hours depending on the time of day and day of the week. General pedestrians and vehicles not approved for either the expedited Sentri or Ready Lane programs typically endure the longest delays.
“If we look at current patterns, these people are already going to Mexico,” Ballard said. “We’re just facilitating a way where it’s easier.”
