www.CostaRicaTicas.com

The new toll booth on the Autopista has opened near the CIMA hospital. The geniuses have decided to charge 310 colones instead of 300 or 400 to make sure that EVERYONE has to wait to get change. (I throw away all my 10 colones coins. Also the drivers have created a nightmare for traffic in Escazu. In order to avoid the roughly 55 cent toll the drivers are driving an extra 15 minutes or so thru Escazu and creating taffic jam all day. It probably costs them another $2 in gasoline to avoid the 55 cent toll. Once you reach the Autopista it is smoothe sailing with very few cars.(shrug) I just don't get it. Did Laura Chinchilla have anything to do with this planning also?

But VB, everytime the colony goes down (almost daily) they will have to raise the toll a few colonies more (thus confusing the drivers even more). They did not want the drivers to get acustomed to a nice easy figure.--See, very simple Tico logic

And the reason so many are driving thru Escazu is NOT the toll but that they just want to see how all the "rich gringos" live and to scope out places for possible "visits" later (at night) . Hey they need moneo to pay thos hugh toll fees

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I already started a thread on this over in Living and Working...

http://costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28747

But here's a recap.

The old toll was 75c, the new toll is 310.
There was no toll on the return trip, it's now 310c each way.
This results in a raise in fair of about 800%.

And yes, I bitched about the 10c also.

The design of the roads, while smooth, won't stay that way long. The reason is that they didn't put adequate water drainage so there's lots of freestanding water around the toll booths. This isn't so much of a problem on the regular road, because those roads have good drainage, but around the toll booths it's very wide without any intermediate drainage, and appears relatively flat (doesn't angle off to allow the water to flow downhill).

On the bright side, they did put nice new traffic signs in. I had no idea the main drag in escazu had a highway number.

The thing I find amazing and counter to our culture - people here would rather take a 2 hour detour, than pay 55 cents for the direct route. Gee - whats my time worth? I dare say that 2 hours of my time is worth a hell of a lot more than 55 cents.

It just shows you that the tico culture believes time is meaningless.

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Giving the Ticos an enormous "benefit of doubt" it's possible that the 55cents might REALLY matter twice a day, 5-6 days a week. BUT damn haven't they figured in the cost of running the car for all the extra time necessary to avoid the toll. I can't believe this will go on much longer. most people will figure out that spending all that extra time and money isn't worth the saving of 55cents.

That may as well be the Costa Rica mission statement.

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That and foriegners are to blame for all problems.

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Once again CRT is ahead of the curve here. Today's www.amcostarica.com has a letter to the editor on page 2 about this same topic.

Yes, but what did you think of his brilliant suggested "solution" of adding toll booths to the Escazu and Gauchipelin exits to discourage motorists from getting off at those exits? A new toll causes problems so lets add even more tolls to fix it . Yeah, right. Seeing how ticos have responded to the new toll near CIMA, I'd imagine this guy's solution would only cause ticos to start taking the back roads and messing up existing traffic patterns starting in Sabana Oeste. Besides that "solution" might divert some ticos back on to the autopista (depending on the amount of the toll differential), but that will be partially offset by new delays caused by the additional toll booth PLUS additional costs for everyone residing in Escazu who wouldn't otherwise have to go through the tollbooth near CIMA or pay any toll to go home.

My questions for you and other wise ex-pats are these:

1) How much of this phenomenon is just due to ticos being cheap and exercising the false economy of using up extra gas to save the money on the toll and

2) How much is a misguided sense of time savings after encountering unaccustomed delays going through the toll booths due to the odd rate that they set?

3) How much of the delays at the CIMA area toll booth are due to their asking for 310 colones or even 350 as opposed to normal tico delays going through any toll booth (ie how much would changing it to a round amount speed things up)?

4) Are there still unusual delays going through the toll booth, or have those going through regularly simply learned to hold on to a small supply of 10c coins so they can avoid the delay of having to wait for return change?

5) I'm guessing that implementing the sort of sensible and efficient electronic toll collection (ETC) system, like Sunpass that we have here in Florida, would be totally out of the question? But, I suppose, if they did try that in CR, so few ticos would get it that the fewer toll lanes would be even more backed up and many ticos without transponders would just try driving through the special lanes without paying.

They are offering a transponder device for sale only at HSBC bank branches. However, they for some reason are charging a $1.50 a month maintenance fee for the device. I had a Sun Pass in Fl for almost 4 years. I used it enough to be classified a "heavy user" (10% rebate at the end of the month) and the only maintenance it ever required was battery replacement.

As to the letter to the editor it seems to me that it is an expat who is retired and most likely does not have much need to use the pista and pay the toll. His solution is not based on solving the problem but rather reducing the traffic in Escazu which inconveniences him.

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