¡Tren!
The four Apolo trains from Spain just arrived in Costa Rica. In the next weeks they are going to be adapted to fit the 1.06 gauge tracks.
The trains are part of a new infrastructure concept to solve the transport situation in the central valley where decades of corruption, misplanning and lack of vision have left the economical, political and cultural center of Costa Rica in a devastated shape. Streets flooded with SUVs and old buses together with replacement of the old architecture with concrete block (60/70 style) gave the city the rest. But it was not always like that. If you look at the old San José there was even a tramway, not to mention the clean streets and nice buildings. The city officials came up with a number plate system where certain numbers are not allowed to enter the city during a specific day. However this is merely more than just the beginning. The same thing applies to the construction of the new pedestrian zones in the capital. A great thing, but as long the problem of how people get into the city is not resolved, there is no real chance for improvement.
In the early days one could go from one Puntarenas on the Pacific side of the county to Puerto Limon on the Caribbean side by train. Then along comes a president who by coincidence owns a large transportation company and does everything to shut down the competition. After a earthquake the rest of the line is disabled. After years of no passenger service at all the line reopened as a kind of metro connecting Pavas and the Universidad Latina in San José. According to the plan of the department of transportation they want to introduce electric trains in 2013 to connect the city of Heredia and the capital. But as always, one has to be careful not to drown in too much excitement as this announcements tend to change, especially because next year is an election year. It’s not that the people wouldn’t like it. Anybody who remembers the old days of San José is deeply frustrated by the current situation.
A working transport system is exactly what this city needs and in my humble opinion it can really be quite a new beginning. Not to imagine what the city could look like if you get out just half of all the cars.
Maybe one day it will be possible to travel from Mexico directly to Panama City, but this sure is going to take some more decades.
More Info: Trenes de Costa Rica (spanish)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 19:39 and is filed under the world is evil. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
