Every driver in Costa Rica knows well that the autopista General Cañas, the major route between the international airport in Alajuela and the La Sabana park in San José, is the busiest and most congested road in the country.
And now there are numbers to back it up.
According to the Laboratorio Nacional de Materiales y Modelos Estructurales (Lanamme), de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 98.616 vehicles snail along the General Cañas daily, topping the 89.000 vehicles on the Ruta 27 (San José – Caldera) and the 80.000 on the Circunvalación (ring road around San José).
The Tránsito Promedio Diario (TPD) map shows graphically the congestion of the major roads of the Central Valley, roads that were never designed or built for the volumes of today.
Guillermo Loría, general coordinator at the Lanamme, says the data was provided by the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT).
The map will be updated annually and will be included in the LanammeCR free mobile application (app) for smartphones, SmartRoad that helps drivers to understand where dangers lurk on highways in Costa Rica. The free application describes levels of risk or susceptibility to accidents, providing information on slippery road sections, with little or no signage and significant presence of impairments.