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 completely 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 work 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 more 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.