Costa Rica infrastructure

RITEVE says vehicle inspection rates haven't increased in 10 years, and blames the Public Works and Transport Ministry for failing to issue a methodology to calculate them.

The Finance Ministry and the Inter-American Development Bank have been trying to speed up the implementation of more than $1.7 billion worth of development loans in energy, infrastructure, security, education and other strategic sectors. Costa Rica has struggled to complete its public works projects in the past, including those with IDB funding, on time and on budget, according to Casa Presidencial.

Authorities in Costa Rica have opened active criminal investigations to determine who organized the ongoing acts of violence and vandalism that began last week and continued through Monday during a dockworkers strike that briefly paralyzed the country's most important commercial port in the Caribbean province of Limón.

A solid majority of Limón residents say that a $1 billion APM Terminals port project will be a positive thing for the impoverished region, according to a survey from Borges y Asociados. The poll results came out soon before the government announced it would restart negotiations with striking dockworkers on Thursday morning.

A Tico Times reporter takes a stroll down Limón's main boulevard and asks local residents what they think about a proposed $1 billion Moín Port expansion project at the center of the ongoing controversy.

"It's a nightmare." That's how Eduardo Carvajal describes the Costa Rican way to give an address.

During President Laura Chinchilla's term from 2010-2014, administration officials and lawmakers passed nine pieces of legislation and one executive decree aimed at helping middle-income Ticos buy homes. Yet despite the effort, little was accomplished toward the goal of increasing the number of homeowners nationwide.

Municipal officials in the southern San José canton of Desamparados on Monday confirmed that property owners in a protected area known as Mt. Tablazo are continuing construction in spite of cease and desist orders from that office and the Municipality of El Guarco, in the province of Cartago.

The negotiation skills of Luis Guillermo Solís' administration were tested this week by protests on Tuesday in which hundreds of residents from several Costa Rican communities blocked main roads in three provinces for eight hours. But there's more to the story.

Starting this week, legislators will discuss proposals for an expansion of the Florencio del Castillo Highway, the main route connecting the eastern sector of the capital with the province of Cartago.