By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff

With the goal of facilitating safer travel for Costa Ricans and tourists during Easter Holy Week, or Semana Santa, next week, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) yesterday announced plans to beef up the Traffic Police force during this time and outlined roadway and airport repairs under way.

An estimated 1.8 million to 2.1 million people are expected to travel around the country next week, according to a statement from the ministry. Beginning Saturday, 819 traffic police will be stationed along primary roads leading to prime vacation spots, explained Traffic Police Director Gérman Marín.

Additionally, at 11 strategically placed checkpoints, officials will be looking for drunk drivers, stolen vehicles, alleged criminals wanted by police and illegal immigrants. These checkpoints will be placed at spots including the vicinity of the Juan Santamaría International Airport, just northwest of San José; La Lima de Cartago, east of San José; the road from Palmar Norte to Dominical, in the Southern Zone; and at the entrance to beaches in the northwestern Guanacaste province including Playas del Coco, according to the ministry.

The ministry has also sped up repairs to some heavily trafficked roads in preparation for this busy vacation week, explained Public Works and Transport Minister Karla González.

These include the road from Santa Elena to Guacimal near the popular north-central cloud forest preserve of Monteverde, the northern Inter-American Highway from Limonal to Cañas and the road between the Guanacaste beaches of Nosara and Sámara, which residents have recently decried for accident-causing clouds of dust (TT, March 23). Workers are trying to get this road in “acceptable” conditions, the minister said.

Eight of the country’s 24 airstrips for national flights are also being worked on. The ministry invested more than ¢1.1 billion ($2.1 million) in improvements to airstrips and terminals at airports in the Southern Zone towns of Golfito, Drake and Palmar Sur, and others around the country, the statement said.