Virilla Bridge
Continues To Create Traffic Havoc
Benjamín Sandino is perhaps the most hated
man in Costa Rica. As the national director
of the Consejo Nacional de Vialidad (Conavi),
he has had to close down completeluy the
most important highway in the country, not
once, but twice in the period of two weeks
and to fix the same problem.
We are talking about the repair work at the
Virilla bridge on the autopista General
Cañas, a problem that has plagued the
westbound lanes of the bridge for more than
a year, as work crews made constant an
non-lasting repairs over the time.
Two weekends ago, Sandino decided to close
the autopista for 52 continuous hours to,
once and for all, replace the metal plate
that spans the north half of the bridge.
But that work lasted a total of 48 hours, as
heavy traffic loosened the plate again and
all the work and efforts were for not.
During the past week, temporary day closures
and complete night closures, allowed workd
crews to prepare the bridge for the
installation of a bean underneath the bridge
to, hopefully, put an end to the all the
traffic interruptions.
As such the autopista from the Juan Pablo II
bridge in La Uruca to the La Castella, east
of Cariari, has been closed since Saturday
morning early and scheduled to re-open
Monday morning at 6am, with all the repairs
made and long lasting.
However, many Costa Ricans don't have much
faith in the work and that there will be no
mor interruptions or closures on the
bridges. Some went as far as saying that
they have more faith in former president,
Rafael Angél Calderón, who is in the last
days of a corruption and embezzlement trial,
being re-elected than in Sandino and the
Conavi.
The reality is that the bridge is the main
link between San José and Alajuela and to
points in Puntarenas and Guanacaste and the
interruptions at the bridge have been a
nightmare for many, with a heavy price paid
in time and waster gasoline, as traffic has
backed up for more than 2 hours on the
alternate routes through Heredia and Santa
Ana.
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