“As residents of Baja California Sur, we never imagined how much the municipality of Los Cabos would grow, that it would become such a generator of foreign exchange, that we can say our planning fell short.”
So noted Víctor Castro Cosío, governor of Baja California Sur, recently regarding a project to help keep infrastructure in line with Los Cabos’ unprecedented growth.
No, the subject was not the Fonatur roundabout upgrade in San José del Cabo, a massive 469 million peso project aimed at improving traffic flow in the municipality’s busiest traffic node (an estimated 60,000 plus vehicles daily). Although work was recently suspended for the holidays, that project is 62% complete and scheduled to finish on time this summer.
Rather, what the governor was referring to, per Peninsular Digital, was the official December launch of “Unidos por Los Cabos.”
United for Los Cabos
The new project is actually a comprehensive master plan that combines several other programs and projects under the larger banner of improving mobility and urban image in Los Cabos. Announced just last month, Unidos por Los Cabos has many ambitious goals — and 300 million pesos with which to tackle them.
One of the goals, for example, is to significantly reduce traffic accidents in the municipality. There were 8,000 of these in the five years between 2018 and 2023 and Unidos por Los Cabos is aiming to reduce this number by 20% and improve mobility generally through 200 new safe pedestrian crossings and rehabilitated sidewalks, 120 new well-marked bus stops, and, perhaps most importantly, the remodeling of “critical nodes” to help traffic flow more safely and efficiently through busy intersections.
More green spaces and benchmarks to reach
However, this is only one of many objectives Unidos por Los Cabos is targeting, along with the creation of sports facilities and 20 parks to provide the municipality with more green spaces, and the beautification of the historic downtown centers of Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo.
“This program is designed to involve all sectors,” affirmed Los Cabos Mayor Christian Agúndez Gómez. “The combined efforts will improve the urban landscape and strengthen mobility. Los Cabos belongs to all of us, and through coordinated work, we can move toward the municipality we want.”
What the governor and the mayor desire can also be glimpsed in the benchmarks they’ve set for Unidos por Los Cabos, which include not only a 20% reduction in traffic accidents but also a 15% improvement in travel times for local drivers.
Makeovers for downtown centers — and why they’re necessary
The rehabilitation, or beautification, promised to the downtown centers of Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo is certainly needed … in Cabo San Lucas. The Land’s End city has seen nightclub sales plummet in recent years. They were down 20% in 2023 and a very concerning 50% in 2024. Much of this has been credited to the so-called “all-inclusive effect,” in which visitors largely eschew the region’s many attractions to take advantage of their chosen property’s all-inclusive amenities — including accommodations, food, beverages, and sometimes even onsite nightclubs.
This type of traveling certainly isn’t good for downtown business owners, but it must be noted that the problem is different in Cabo San Lucas than it is in San José del Cabo, for reasons that go well beyond the popularity of all-inclusives. The former’s downtown has never received anywhere near the attention lavished on the latter, and as a consequence, has languished in recent years due to problems generally related to poor aesthetics and a lack of infrastructure. Nor are bar owners the only ones hard hit by declining sales.
“Rehabilitation” clearly is needed. The 140 million pesos earmarked for this project in downtown Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo will be paid for through the hotel tax that funds FITURCA (the Los Cabos Tourism Board), and is expected to begin in early 2026 as part of the overall Unidos por Los Cabos master plan.
How police and firefighters kept Los Cabos safe on Christmas Eve
Fifty-three people in Los Cabos spent Christmas Eve in jail as a result of the aptly named Operation Guadalupe-Reyes — holiday revelry in Mexico peaks between the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe on Dec. 12 and El Día de Reyes (Three Kings Day) on Jan. 6. Police set up mobile checkpoints and administered breathalyzers as part of an overall goal to reduce traffic accidents and keep roads safe during the holiday season.
It was also a busy holiday for Cabo San Lucas bomberos, who responded to seven separate calls between the evening of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. One was to put out a house fire. Perhaps the most dramatic, however, was a call in which they prevented a local man from committing suicide. Several other calls were for medical assistance or minor fires.
Firefighters in San José del Cabo, meanwhile, also had a busy Christmas Eve, thanks to a head-on collision between a motorcycle and a pickup truck that saw one man (presumably the motorcyclist) transported for additional medical attention.
Hopefully, local first responders were able to enjoy the holidays themselves at some point. Los Cabos saw nearly 90% occupancy rates at local hotels and resorts during late December, a number that translates to a very Merry Christmas for the destination as a whole.
Chris Sands is the former Cabo San Lucas local expert for the USA Today travel website 10 Best and writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos travel guidebook. He’s also a contributor to numerous websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily.
