I guess with the world’s ever-increasing population it should come as no surprise that the traffic here in Costa Rica is getting worse. I was in downtown San Jose yesterday at 5pm near Parque La Sabana. It normally takes me one hour to get home to Paraiso de Cartago from there. Yesterday it took me over two hours!

The government is implementing new measures to cut down on traffic, but mostly to save on fuel. Last year they began a ban on 20% of the cars driving through downtown Monday thru Friday. Basically, if you have a license plate ending in 1 or 2, you can’t drive on Monday within the downtown limits, or expect a fine. Then there are different days assigned to different license plate numbers.

Now they just began re-routing many of the bus routes to try and ease congestion a bit. Those busses which used to run down Paseo Colon are now traveling down Ave 1 and Ave 10.

I think they ought to start thinking about new roads and repairing the ones they have. But when we’re talking about poor countries with bad credit ratings and a rapidly-increasing population — it’s a recipe for disaster!