NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Friday, December 5, 2008

GOVERNOR ANNOUCES PLAN FOR FASTER TRAVEL

TO/FROM ROCKY POINT

Public-Private Partnership Expands Lukeville Port of Entry

PHOENIX – Governor Janet Napolitano and her Sonoran counterpart, Governor Eduardo Bours, today announced that the Lukeville-Sonoyta Port of Entry (POE), the popular gateway to Rocky Point for Arizonans, will be expanded to accommodate the growing number of travelers.

The port was built more than 20 years ago and is not large enough to handle the amount of visitors who travel to Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point) and return to Arizona on holidays and weekends. The announcement was made at the 2008 Fall Plenary Session of the Arizona-Mexico Commission (AMC)/ Comisión Sonora-Arizona in Hermosillo, Sonora.

“Many travelers returning from Rocky Point have experienced the 5-hour line at the Port,” the Governor explained. “Stakeholders on all levels – federal, state and local – worked hard on the first public-private effort to ease the congestion at the Port or Entry.”

This binational public-private partnership between Arizona and Mexico was developed by the Tourism Committee and Transportation, Infrastructure and Ports Committee of the AMC. The Committees worked for more than a year to facilitate the flow of traffic for visitors and widen the Lukeville-Sonoyta POE.

The current POE will be expanding from three lanes to five lanes; reducing the wait from five hours to three hours during peak times. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has agreed to staff the port once it is expanded. The expansion is estimated to cost $2.5 million, which has already been secured through public and private sector agreements. Enhancement work is anticipated to take less than 12 months.

The Arizona and Sonoran Offices of Tourism, the Arizona Department of Transportation, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA), General Services Administration (GSA) and their Mexican counterparts, including Puerto Peñasco Convention and Visitors Bureau, partnered with the AMC on this agreement.

For more information about the Office of the Governor, please visit www.azgovernor.gov. 

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