Mexico’s environmental agency SEMARNAT (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) has opened a 30-day public consultation period on the proposed bypass for the Tijuana-Ensenada Scenic Highway. The comment window runs from April 20 through May 19, 2026, giving residents, property owners, and other interested parties a formal chance to review and respond to the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment.
Engineering firm TGC Geotecnia filed the assessment in early March. The proposal calls for a new 25.5-kilometer, four-lane highway connecting the Tijuana-Ensenada corridor through an alternate inland route. The project includes four bridges, seven vehicle underpasses, and one vault structure, according to the consultation documents.
A Long-Debated Alternative Route
The bypass concept has been on the table for years. The existing scenic toll road, which opened in 1967, runs along an unstable stretch of Baja’s northern Pacific coastline. A major collapse at Kilometer 92 in 2013 shut down a section of the highway for over a year and required nearly one billion pesos (roughly $80 million USD at the time) in repairs.
Even after those repairs, engineers have warned that the threat of another collapse remains real. The highway currently ranks third in all of Mexico for major maintenance costs, according to data from CAPUFE (Caminos y Puentes Federales), the federal toll road agency. Nearly all of that spending goes to the same Kilometer 92 zone.
When the scenic road closed in 2013, traffic diverted to the free highway between Tijuana and Ensenada. The Ensenada Business Coordinating Council reported 15 traffic fatalities on that route in the following year, as daily vehicle counts increased five to tenfold.
Environmental Concerns and How to Comment
Environmental groups and citizen coalitions in Ensenada have raised concerns that the bypass could permanently remove habitat and disrupt ecosystems near El Sauzal and the northern Ensenada corridor. The public consultation period allows anyone to submit written observations and propose additional prevention or mitigation measures tied to the Environmental Impact Assessment.
Comments must be submitted to SEMARNAT before the May 19, 2026 deadline. Earlier estimates pegged the bypass construction cost at approximately 2.7 billion pesos (around $135 million USD), a figure drawn from the Ensenada Municipal Strategic Plan prepared by the Ensenada Economic Development Council and the city government.
The consultation details were first reported by Ensenada.net.