MEXICAN HIGHWAY 5 UPDATE

Anyone who rode last year, knows that stretch of about 130 miles from Mexicali to San Felipe was riddled with potholes and was a bitch, especially on rigids. Here's a little update that we poached this off of the official San Felipe site:

Mexicali to San Felipe via Highway 5

2/10/07 Update -Large stretches of the pavement south of La Ventana have been renovated with an asphalt top layer and this has considerably eased the pothole problem north of the Ensenada road. Pavement edge and centerline markings are yet to be added so be very careful - especially if you drive at night.



General conditions:
Highway 5 from Mexicali to San Felipe is in mostly good condition. However, there are frequently numerous potholes, particularly between the south end of the Laguna Salada and the Ensenada road so be very careful, especially at night. Allow 2.5 hours from the border to the Arches in San Felipe. Speeds of 70-80 mph are possible, radar and highway patrol permitting. (Remember the maximum speed limit is 50 mph or 80 kph). There is currently only the 'permanent' military checkpoint at the junction with the Ensenada Road where checks for drugs and guns are always made, particularly on the trip north. On busy weekends, the traffic north can be significantly delayed at this checkpoint. Worst delay times are Sunday afternoons where delays of 30 minutes to 2 hours are possible. Remember there is no gasoline or diesel fuel available in the 130 mile stretch from Mexicali to San Felipe.

The government is planning to upgrade the entire road to a four lane divided highway at some future date. The first 20 km of this work, south from Mexicali, has been completed. Note that the government is also building an extension of the east-west "interstate from Tijuana/Tecate to head over to San Luis and connect to the mainland arterial road system. The most obvious sign of this is the new bridge (below) that has been built over the San Felipe road around km 13 south of Mexicali. This road is now open (see below).

Upgrade work on the San Felipe end of the road has been in progress for the past year and we have a wider two-lane highway from town up to El Dorado. Now we critically need the additional two lanes to be put in. This stretch of the highway is, without a doubt, the most hazardous part of the entire journey to San Felipe. With the tremendous building boom in the El Dorado corridor (km 150-190 on the road) construction vehicles and tradesmans vans are everywhere. These vehicles, generally loaded to capacity, trundle up and down the road from early morning to the evening and are a major problem for the fast vehicles of visitors and residents alike. We urge you to be extremely careful on this stretch of road as there are frequent bad accidents. A particular problem is that slow vehicles pull out onto the main highway from side roads to merge with traffic going at 50-60 mph. During the busy weeks around easter there were reports of visitors stuck on the side roads for 45 minutes waiting for a safe gap in traffic to pull onto the highway.