MEX: new autopista near Morelia, Mich.

[treichard]

Check out this new autopista between MEX 120 Morelia and MEX 15D past the airport. It is covered on Google Street View.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=19.796102,-101.021004&spn=0.063638,0.119219&z=14

What is the number designation for this autopista?
A. MEX 15D
B. MEX 43D
C. MEX 45D
D. MEX 48D
E. MEX 95D

[J N Winkler]

This being Mexico, it would be extremely unsafe to assume that:

*  It has an explicit numerical designation

*  The designation is federal as opposed to state

Case in point is the Super Two toll road between Samalayuca (Mex. 45) and San Jerónimo (Mex. 2), which functions in effect as a southwestern bypass of Juárez.  (This road is not really useful to traffic trying to return to the US through Santa Teresa rather than the urban Juárez/El Paso POEs because the start is south of the Km 30 internal frontier checkpoint.)  The designation for this toll road, as shown on signs, is Chih. [blank].  In other words, a Chihuahua state route marker is used with no digits, and also no "D."

[treichard]

From what I've seen in GMSV for the northern half of Mexico (and assuming the southern half is similar), it's safer to assume that a given autopista has a single clear number (or in a few cases, two concurrent numbers) than that it has none.  Often there are signs with blank shields or shields with conflicting numbers, but usually one number appears in far more places than the others and can be believed.

There are a few exceptions, and you found one. Neither the SCT nor INEGI maps nor signs nor km markers in GMSV give any indication of a number there. 

In the example in my first post, I've seen three different designations on signs at different places, all in disagreement (45D, 15D, 95D).  The km markers all say MEX 48D instead.  The autopista is not a bypass of any of those corresponding non-D federal highways, and there is no hint of state highway shields anywhere I looked.  Unfortunately any SCT or CAPUFE list of autopistas I've managed to dig up to settle this is devoid of numbers even in other instances there is a clear number by signs.

[Brandon]

^^
According to this sign it is MX-48D.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=19.850464,-101.008923&spn=0,0.035963&z=16&layer=c&cbll=19.850405,-101.009009&panoid=ZEyXDKNE1fxg2lkmDs9ypA&cbp=12,255.82,,0,-2.36

[kphoger]

This being Mexico, it would be extremely unsafe to assume that:

*  It has an explicit numerical designation

*  The designation is federal as opposed to state

Case in point is the Super Two toll road between Samalayuca (Mex. 45) and San Jerónimo (Mex. 2), which functions in effect as a southwestern bypass of Juárez.  (This road is not really useful to traffic trying to return to the US through Santa Teresa rather than the urban Juárez/El Paso POEs because the start is south of the Km 30 internal frontier checkpoint.)  The designation for this toll road, as shown on signs, is Chih. [blank].  In other words, a Chihuahua state route marker is used with no digits, and also no "D."

Actually, the internal checkpoint has been located at km 72 (south of Salamayuca) since late 2008.  Besides which, was it really necessary to pass by the old checkpoint anyway?  Does the Santa Teresa crossing not offer full service in-office, such as vehicle paperwork?

[J N Winkler]

Actually, the internal checkpoint has been located at km 72 (south of Samayaluca) since late 2008.  Besides which, was it really necessary to pass by the old checkpoint anyway?  Does the Santa Teresa crossing not offer full service in-office, such as vehicle paperwork?

My information dates from January 2002, when the Mexican border crossing opposite Santa Teresa offered no facilities for cancelling a temporary vehicle importation and the nearest customs facility that did was the internal frontier checkpoint on Mex. 45, then located at km 30.  (I had gone to San Jéronimo in the first instance on the understanding that import cancellation would be possible there, only to discover that this information was bad.  I was not happy about the backtracking I had to do, but figured it was better than having my car on the Mexicans' books as an illegal import.  The worst part was that the added delay pushed me into the evening rush hour, which was busy enough at Santa Teresa though not as bad as the main El Paso/Juárez crossings.)

It sounds like vehicle processing has since been rationalized in the Mex. 45 corridor south of Juárez.

I continue to believe that the best way to avoid hassles when doing temporary vehicle importation is to avoid exiting Mexico near a major city.  My experience at Juárez and Nogales has been that the only place to return the vehicle permit is at an internal frontier checkpoint well south of the city, not at any of the actual border crossings.  Without specific knowledge of the location of any internal frontier checkpoints on Mex. 2, it then becomes impossible to tell whether you can reach a less crowded border crossing on Mex. 2 after returning your permit.  Of course you can try driving to your preferred crossing point (as I did at Santa Teresa) but if you then find that the station there can't accept your permit, you have wasted a trip of considerable length.

When I returned from Hermosillo in 2003, I would rather have returned through Naco or Sasabe but I could not tell whether either station had its own permit-handling facilities or was considered to be within Nogales' area of influence.  The internal frontier checkpoint south of Nogales was north of the Mex. 2 turnoffs I would have had to take to access either town, so logically they should have had their own internal frontier checkpoints, but that didn't tell me anything about permitting facilities since in principle drivers entering at either station could be asked to follow roads closely paralleling the border in order to get their permits at the main internal frontier checkpoint south of Nogales.  I felt I had to return my permit at that station, and thus commit myself to crossing in the Nogales vicinity, because it was the bird in hand.

At minor border crossings widely separated from large cities (like Ojinaga or some of the other minor Rio Grande towns), it is much more straightforward since the border stations will be able both to issue new permits and accept returned ones.

[kphoger]

I'm nearly certain I've read somewhere that Sta Teresa now does the vehicle paperwork as well, but it's too late to start digging that info up again.  I agree about not crossing in major cities.  But, yes, the internal checkpoint has been moved to south of Samalayuca, so it would be a moot point now anyway.