By Oct. 2009 it Should be Smooth Sailing Down the Pacific Coast Highway.

Costa Rica’s infamous road system, often a topic of frustrated news and national concern, has decorated news headlines this week, thanks to the potential $850 million loan to improve and fix the country’s failing infrastructure. In even better news, however, Costa Rica’s President Óscar Arias and the Minister of Public Works and Transportation, Karla González, promised yesterday that the long-awaited Costanera Sur, the southern Pacific’s coastal highway, will be complete by October 2009, after an exaggerated 30 year delay.

Three of the area’s eight major, planned bridges were inaugurated this week, arriving after years of delayed promises. In fact, yesterday’s ceremonies came after thirty long years of waiting, during which the citizens of Quepos-area coastal towns, living along the Paquita, Portalón, and Matapalo rivers, could not cross rivers during the winter, or rainy season.

The Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (MOPT), invested $5 million in the bridges’ construction. Next on the ministry’s to do list are two additional bridges over the Parrita and Naranjo rivers, which are expected by the end of 2009. In the beginning on 2009, construction will begin on bridges over the Savegre, Hatillo Nuevo, and Hatillo Viejo rivers.

This long stretch of bridge and highway area, which stretches 42 kilometers (26 miles) from Quepos to Barú near the Panamanian border, is known as the Costanera Sur. Currently paved with cement, the route is scheduled to receive an asphalt redo, to the tune of $34 million, “The asphalt is scheduled to be finished in one year, because in October 2009, we’ll be inaugurating the Costanera Sur,” González promised.

Prior to the new bridges’ construction, the area south of Quepos was woefully ill prepared for the winter rains and regional traffic. According to MOPT, the perfect example of the southern Pacific’s road system can be found at the Paquita river, where the only existing infrastructure were train tracks that had been installed more than 70 years prior.

The Costanera Sur project is possible thanks to a $60 million loan from the Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE) in 2003. To complete the project, MOPT invested $34 million more of its own funds, helping to finish off tasks, like resurfacing the route with asphalt.

Once the modern, well-conditioned Costanera Sur is ready, Costa Rica Tourism and traffic to the south of Quepos will surely increase, as adventurous travelers set off to explore the Pacific wilderness. Packed with incredible beaches, like beautiful Dominical, and convenient to the beachy Quepos, the route will connect northern and southern Puntarenas, affording everyone a gentler journey south to the green eden of the Osa Peninsula and the duty-free Golfito.

The Costanera Sur, ready in 2009, will offer great convenience to those traveling south of Quepos. In addition to these travelers, the area’s many residents will be afforded more transportation freedom, especially in the wet, rainy season that so often threatens to landlock them. No more, though, as new bridges pop up around the area’s rivers, and a thirty-year wait finally pays off.

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Filed under: Travel on August 14th, 2008