Highway to Caldera One Step Closer to Completion
Construction on road to Caldera is set to begin in January as the the last hurdle facing the completion of the road was overcome yesterday with the green light from the Contraloría General de la República (Comptroller's office).
The Contraloría approved the latest amendments to the contract that leaves the road builder, Autopistas de Sol, and its financiers in agreement. Almost.
The machines are expected to start moving by the middle of January 2008 if the contractor and the financiers sign their agreement, which is expected to take place sometime next month.
One of the main hurdles for the project that received the green light from the Contraloría was more money for the project, going from the original amount of ¢182 million colones to ¢230 million colones for the completion work.
The road, which has been in the planning and construction stage for the last 30 years, should take about 30 months to complete and will cut the travel time between San José to Caldera, Puntarenas to half hour instead of the 90 minutes it takes today.
The completion of the road will also mean faster travel to and from Playa Jacó and Quepos/Manuel Antonio. Currently, travel time to Jacó is 1 hour 45 minutes and 3 hours 15 minutes to Quepos through the mountains west of Atenas on the road called "el monte aguacate". The new road will cut almost an hour from travel to Jacó and Quepos.
The strecth of road between Cuidad Colon, west of Santa Ana, and Orotina is the major portion of the road that needs to be completed. Teh bridges, some of which are already deteriorating, were built some years ago.
The new road will be a toll road. once completed, traffic will be charged ¢1.000 colones to use the new road.
Labels: Costa Rica, Costa Rica Economy, Costa Rica Geography, Costa Rica Investment
