Finally! That’s what the vast majority of Costa Ricans exclaimed when the news was released that the bridge Alfredo González Flores, better known as “La Platina”, will finally open on Thursday, May 25.

The bridge over the Virilla river in the General Cañas highway which connects San José to Alajuela, will open to allow normal transit on this date, some last detail work though, will have to be done in the later hours of the night for “several weeks” as to not to interrupt the traffic.

Problems with this bridge began in 2009, governments have come and gone and only temporary repairs were done to it, causing frustration and exasperation for everybody, but particularly for the drivers that every day are forced to take this route.

7,345 million colones (almost 13 million dollars) was the amount invested in a permanent solution to this bridge which is now a 6 lane bridge. The substructure of the bridge was reinforced and the load capacity and seismic resistance was also increased. The $13 million is just the amount invested in this complete overhaul; the amount invested in repairs in the previous years are estimated in close to $10 million.

The Minister of Public Works and Tranportation (MOPT), Carlos Villata, stated that with the bridge now open the transit of close to 100,000 cars that use this route on a daily basis should be more dynamic.

Initially the government had established February 28th as the date for the work to be completed, Minister Carlos Villalta had even said he’d resign if the work was not completed by this date; yet, it took three more months; the first delay was attributed to the Hurricane Otto emergency, the date was then moved to April 30 and this didn’t happen due to “unexpected situations” that raised during the construction phase.

Let’s hope the nightmare is finally over and that this story hopefully ends here.