Costa Rica Travel Posts

Costa Rica’s New Highway

By Patrick Brunelle ⋅ March 1, 2010 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Costa Rica’s new highway officially opened a few weeks ago, providing a great alternative to those driving to Puntarenas from San Jose. I drove down to Samara last weekend, and cut the driving town by one and a half hours. Of course, leaving at 4am must have had something to do with it. I was a little displeased with the fact that many of the lanes were still single lanes, and that I was often stuck behind a slow moving vehicle with no where to pass. Costa Rica really had a great opportunity to do something really special with this road, however, for some reason, decided to do more of the same which has been causing many headaches, and even lives in Costa Rica for as long as there have been cars on the road.

Our drivers actually prefer sticking with the old road through Athenas rather than going through San Jose all the way to Santa Ana during rush hour. If anything, the new road has really reduced the number of cars seen on the old road. If you plan on driving on the new road, you can also expect to pay nearly 2.000 Colones in duties each way. Overall, I am please with the entire project, and hope the Costa Rican government can figure out a way to improve the driving conditions in the rest of the Costa Rica, especially the worst drives in Costa Rica.