Snapshot: The woes of Costa Rica’s San José-San Ramón road corridor

As paperwork advances to terminate the Ruta Uno trust fund – the entity that was initially tasked with building and managing Costa Rica’s San José-San Ramón road corridor – the project is pending a re-engineering process. 

Local media reported this week that the contract addendum to allow the termination of the trust could be signed in the next few days.

With all the signatures, the trust would likely be terminated in December 2024, according to news outlet Crhoy.com. 

State-owned bank BCR was meant to build and manage the corridor, and collect the tolls for 30 years through Ruta Uno and the project’s execution unit.

However, last December the public works and transport ministry (MOPT) said it was preparing a payment to the bank in order to give the project a fresh start with a new financial structure. 

MOPT said the reasons for removing BCR from the main parts of the project were delays, the high cost of the execution unit, and the fact that the bank had not been able to obtain the necessary funds.

“Every month we pay the bank US$193,000. The bank has not obtained the financial resources for these works, and the government’s contributions have surpassed US$50mn. This situation will not work… we must move forward with a highway design that allows construction to progress,” local news outlet Semanario Universitario reported MOPT minister Luis Amador as saying.

After the ending of the trust, the project will be overseen by the MOPT with funding from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei), that will provide up to US$550mn. 

Cabei will also oversee the re-engineering process. In March this year the development bank announced it was seeking a consultancy firm to conduct studies to enable modifications to the project, for which it would provide US$1mn. 

This week, the bank’s representative in Costa Rica, Álvaro Alfaro, was quoted by news outlet Carreteras Pan-Americanas as saying that Cabei had received four offers from companies interested in carrying out pre-construction studies and re-engineering. These procedures, he said, would be based on the work done by the consultancy firm hired by the trust years back: Spain’s IDOM. Construction works based on the re-engineering could begin in 2024 or 2025.

The project

Cabei will provide between US$500mn and US$550mn for the project, which includes widening and upgrading the General Cañas and Bernardo Soto highways – known as the San José-San Ramón road corridor. 

Carreteras Pan-Americanas reported in October that the project’s capex was US$650mn.

The planned works involve the following:

Stretch 1 Sabana-Circunvalación (1.6km): To be widened to three lanes in each direction. 

Stretch 2 Circunvalación-Aeropuerto (12.6km): To be widened to four lanes in each direction. 

Stretch 3 Aeropuerto-San Antonio del Tejar (5.2km): To be widened to three lanes in each direction.

Strech 4 San Antonio del Tejar-San Ramón (34.8km): improvement works. 

The improvements include the construction of intersections, bus bays and bridges.  

Image: San José-San Ramón road corridor (Source: Ruta Uno)