Transport in Costa Rica

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San Pedro roundabout in San Jose CRC 07 2009 San Pedro Roundabout 6318.JPG
San Pedro roundabout in San José

There are many modes of transport in Costa Rica but the country's infrastructure has suffered from a lack of maintenance and new investment. There is an extensive road system of more than 30,000 kilometers, although much of it is in disrepair; this also applies to ports, railways and water delivery systems. [1] According to a 2016 U.S. government report, investment from China that attempted to improve the infrastructure found the "projects stalled by bureaucratic and legal concerns". [2] [3]

Contents

Most parts of the country are accessible by road. The main highland cities in the country's Central Valley are connected by paved all-weather roads with the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by the Pan American Highway with Nicaragua and Panama, the neighboring countries to the north and to the south Costa Rica's ports are struggling to keep pace with growing trade. They have insufficient capacity, and their equipment is in poor condition. The railroad didn't function for several years, until recent government effort to reactivate it for city transportation. An August 2016 OECD report provided this summary: "The road network is extensive but of poor quality, railways are in disrepair and only slowly being reactivated after having been shut down in the 1990s. Seaports’ quality and capacity are deficient. Internal transportation overly relies on private road vehicles as the public transport system, especially railways, is inadequate." [4]

Railways

Road transportation

The road system in Costa Rica is not as developed as it might be expected for such a country. However, there are some two-lane trunk roads with restricted access under development.

National road network

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT), along with the National Road Council (Conavi), are the government organizations in charge of national road nomenclature and maintenance.

There are three levels in the national road network:

Waterways

730 km (454 mi), seasonally navigable by small craft

Pipelines

Ports and harbors

Cruise ships at Puntarenas. CRI 04 2013 Cruceros Puntarenas 6300.JPG
Cruise ships at Puntarenas.

In 2016, the government pledged ₡93 million ($166,000) for a new cruise ship terminal for Puerto Limón. [5]

Atlantic Ocean

Pacific Ocean

Merchant marine

Airports

Juan Santamaria International Airport. SJO Aerial view 019 01 2009.jpg
Juan Santamaría International Airport.

Total: 161 (2013) [6]

Airports - with paved runways

Airports - with unpaved runways

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References

  1. "Is infrastructure Costa Rica's Achilles' heel? | Infrastructure Intelligence".
  2. "Export.gov - CCG".
  3. "Costa rica aml report". Archived from the original on 2017-08-05. Retrieved 2017-08-04.
  4. Pisu, Mauro; Villalobos, Federico (2016). "A bird-eye view of Costa Rica's transport infrastructure | OECD Economics Department Working Papers | OECD iLibrary". doi: 10.1787/5jlswbwvwqjf-en .{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. "Costa Rica pledges new cruise ship terminal for Caribbean Limón". September 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 "The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency". www.cia.gov. Retrieved 2017-02-10.

PD-icon.svg This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook. CIA.