Starting Wednesday, the U.S.-Mexico border will be one of the world's only boundaries with an airport straddling two countries.

An investor group that includes Chicago billionaire Sam Zell built a sleek terminal in San Diego with a bridge that crosses a razor-wire border fence to Tijuana's decades-old airport. Passengers pay $18 to walk a 390-foot overpass to Tijuana International Airport, a springboard to about 30 Mexican destinations.



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. Now, they 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.

Cross Border Xpress, one of the largest privately-operated U.S. air terminals, wouldn't have happened if Tijuana didn't build its airport a few steps from the international line in the 1950s or if it wasn't surrounded by undeveloped land in a barren, industrial part of San Diego.

CBX officials say they hope to capture half of Tijuana passengers bound for the U.S., which sounds realistic to nervous Tijuana airport taxi drivers who charge $13 for a ride to a land crossing. Nearly all cars in the Tijuana airport garage have California plates.

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