highway expansion

It will soon be easier to reach downtown Puntarenas after a series of infrastructure improvements along La Angostura.

An archaeological evaluation prior to the expansion of the main highway in Costa Rica revealed the presence of four pre-Columbian tombs, clay pots and...

Ten years after Route 27 was inaugurated, the Costa Rican highway is already in need of expansion. 

Residents and entrepreneurs from Costa Rica’s northern zone on Wednesday met with President Luis Guillermo Solís and asked him to move faster with the project to build a new road to San Carlos, a project they have been waiting for more than 40 years.

The expansion from two to four lanes of the highway between Cañas and Liberia, Guanacaste, originally scheduled to be ready in May of last year, will take up to six more months past the previous July 2015 deadline set by the Public Works and Transportation (MOPT) earlier this year.

Some have voiced concerns about the project’s final price tag, specifically the cost of expropriating land for the expansion. The bill must now be signed by President Luis Guillermo Solís before becoming law.

Smart spending choices are a national tradition. So it’s not only sensible, but very Costa Rican, to ask whether spending $485 million on expanding a highway for a system of travel only accessible to the only 18.8 percent of Costa Ricans who own a car is money well spent.

Since leaving office, former Public Works and Transport Minister Pedro Castro no longer enjoys impunity from prosecution. Tatiana Vargas, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor’s Office, told The Tico Times in an email that the documents would be sent Wednesday morning to the Deputy Prosecutor for Probity, Transparency and Anti-corruption for review.

CAÑAS, Guanacaste – The widening to four lanes of the Inter-American Highway North, from Cañas to Liberia, is moving forward at full pace. A recent visit by The Tico Times to the construction site confirmed that the project already has changed the lives of hundreds of local residents who use the highway daily.

School children fidgeted in plumed marching band uniforms and historical costumes in the Alajuela sun as elected officials and ministers spoke in the shadow of the statue of Costa Rican folk hero Juan Santamaría on Friday, a sharp contrast from the violent protests that interrupted the holiday last year over the troubled San Ramón highway concession.