Tijuana Mayor Ismael Burgueño Ruiz inaugurated a new Sendero Seguro (Safe Path) at the Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana’s Otay campus on Saturday, April 26. The project placed 90 LED streetlights along 986 meters of pedestrian corridor, and city officials estimate it will benefit more than 50,610 daily pedestrians in the area.
The lighting upgrade cost 4.67 million pesos (roughly $234,000 USD) and was funded entirely through FORTAMUN, a federal program that channels money to municipalities for public safety and infrastructure. Workers installed the LED fixtures along routes used by students, staff, and residents of the surrounding Otay district, one of the highest foot-traffic zones in eastern Tijuana.
Addressing a Long-Standing Safety Gap
Poor lighting around the Otay campus had been a persistent complaint from the campus community. José Guillermo Cárdenas López, director of the Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, thanked the mayor for delivering the project. Student representative Emersón José Martínez Santos said the improved corridor will allow students to reach campus exits and public transportation stops more safely, particularly during early morning and evening hours.
The Otay campus sits near one of Tijuana’s busiest industrial and commercial corridors, close to the Otay Mesa border crossing. Thousands of workers and students pass through the area daily, and sidewalk conditions after dark had long posed a concern.
Part of a National Lighting Initiative
The Sendero Seguro program is a national initiative promoted by President Claudia Sheinbaum. It targets improved lighting around schools, universities, and zones with heavy pedestrian traffic. The goal is to reduce street crime by eliminating dark stretches where incidents are more likely to occur.
This is not the first Sendero Seguro project in Tijuana. In December 2025, the city completed a similar installation at the Instituto Tecnológico’s Tomás Aquino campus, where crews installed 73 bollard lights along an 876-meter path benefiting about 6,000 students and 8,000 nearby residents.
Tijuana has been upgrading its public lighting infrastructure for several years. The city first announced plans to modernize its streetlight network with LED technology in 2020, citing the high maintenance costs and short lifespan of its older system.
The Otay campus project was first reported by Punto Norte and Tijuana en Línea.