Tijuana’s College of Civil Engineers accused the state water utility CESPT of leaving roughly 180,000 square meters of open trenches across the city’s streets, damage created by the utility’s own drainage and water line work. The group’s president, Francisco Javier Franco Casas, made the claim at a weekly business breakfast on April 16.
CESPT, the Comisión Estatal de Servicios Públicos de Tijuana, charges customers a fee that explicitly covers asphalt resurfacing after excavation work. Franco Casas said thousands of cuts in city streets remain open for months or even years despite those payments. The unrepaired trenches create hazards for drivers and pedestrians alike.
Pothole Campaign Draws Skepticism
The criticism arrives as CESPT director Mónica Vega Aguirre has been promoting a high-profile pothole repair campaign. On April 8, Vega Aguirre announced that 10,000 potholes remain unfilled in Tijuana and that the utility has spent 300 million pesos (roughly $15.6 million USD) on road repairs since 2021.
Franco Casas drew a sharp distinction between ordinary potholes and the backlog his organization identified. The 180,000 square meters of unrepaired road surface, he said, consists of trenches that CESPT itself dug and was already paid to close. That area is equivalent to roughly 25 soccer fields of torn-up pavement scattered across the city.
Political Motivations Alleged
The engineers’ group implied the repair campaign may be politically motivated. Vega Aguirre is a reported 2027 electoral hopeful, and Franco Casas questioned why the agency is now prioritizing visible road fixes. He called the community “too passive and permissive” for not demanding accountability from the utility.
CESPT has been under broader scrutiny for its infrastructure management. In January 2026, a major sewage pipe collapse in eastern Tijuana sent untreated wastewater into the Tijuana River basin. The Insurgentes Collector, about three miles long and carrying 900 liters of wastewater per second, failed due to aging infrastructure, according to KPBS reporting at the time.
The utility is also currently rehabilitating a drainage subcollector in the La Joya neighborhood, replacing infrastructure more than 30 years old. That project serves over 27,000 residents, according to local media reports from April 12.
For drivers navigating Tijuana’s already challenging roads, the engineers’ assessment paints a bleak picture: the utility that digs up streets is the same one failing to repair them, even after collecting the fees meant to cover restoration. This story was first reported by Punto Norte on April 16.