Time to find a good excuse for a trip to the Pacific coast
Everyone is going to want to take a trip on the new Autopista del Sol that will be inaugurated by central government officials Wednesday.
The trip from La Sabana to Caldera will cost 1,930 colons for a passenger car. A motorist will face four toll stations: Escazú, Alajuela, Atenas and Orotina. There also are toll stations at several exits.
The opening of the highway is not without controversy. Residents of Santa Ana are unhappy, and Ciudad Colón residents protested so much that a toll station there is temporarily out of service. The Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y de Arquitectos de Costa Rica is unhappy because its leadership thinks that the concession holders for the highway owe them millions of colons in fees.
This is the highway that has been nearly 40 years in the making. It is designed to cut about an hour off a car trip to the Pacific. The bridges have been in place for more than four years, but the central government finally got a concession approved so that a private company would front the money and then collect the tolls.
This also is the road where designers made no provisions for emergency vehicles, and ambulances with lights flashing and siren wailing had to wait in line at toll booths. A subsequent Sala IV constitutional case resulted in an order for the concession holder to set up emergency lanes for fire vehicles, police and ambulances.
The highway is mostly two-lane with some passing lanes.
The prediction of a swift trip over the new 77 kms (48 miles) might be optimistic, particularly if some slow-moving trucks are in the way.
Developers and tourism operators are counting on the new highway to be a boon to their industries. The highway works in the other direction, too, so Pacific coast residents will have a quicker access to the Central Valley for shopping and government and entertainment activities.
And the new route is a magnet for Sunday drivers who will just want to see the countryside. The highway has been completed sooner than expected. But President Óscar Arias Sánchez appears to want to officially open the highway before voters decide the future of his former vice president. So some last-minute work still is to be done.
