Out with the Old: San José Mayor Johnny Araya yesterday inaugurated the beginning of work to turn a stretch of old sidewalk along the city's Avenida Central into a pedestrian boulevard.

It seemed there was literally a light at the end of the tunnel yesterday as the morning sun shined upon Costa Rica and the danger of communities drowning in floodwaters began to subside.

On Friday at 10 a.m., The Tico Times will host its first live online chat. Political analyst Luis Guillermo Solís will answer readers' questions about how CAFTA could change Costa Rica. Visit us at www.ticotimes.net/chat to join in.

“Peter Pan”
Play in English performed by Saint Francis School students, today and tomorrow, 7:30 p.m., Castella Theater, north side of La Sabana Park, between Nissan and Burger King, San José. Info: 297-1704.

Play “El Arte de la Seducción”
7 p.m., Eugene O'Neill Theater, Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center, Los Yoses, San José.

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net

The San José Municipality yesterday symbolically entered the next phase of ripping up Avenida Central's crumbling sidewalks to replace them with attractive brick walkways.

As he has done on previous occasions, San José Mayor Johnny Araya drove a sledgehammer into a patch of sidewalk in front of the Central Market.

A 100-meter stretch of Avenida Central beginning at the market and heading west will have its cement replaced with bricks to become an extension of the pedestrian boulevard within the next month, said municipality spokeswoman Carman Azofeifa.

The original plan was to work all the way west to San Juan de Dios Hospital -- near where the street becomes the traffic thoroughfare of Paseo Colón -- by December, but storeowners along this stretch pleaded with the municipality to wait until the lucrative Christmas season was over to begin construction, she said.

The municipality agreed to wait until January to resume work with the goal of finishing by April.

Once the project is complete, drivers heading east into San José will need to turn onto Ave. 2 rather than continuing along Paseo Colón when they reach the pedestrian stretch, and a few bus stops will need to be relocated.

Although this ¢90 million ($174,418) project may inconvenience drivers, it will benefit the pedestrians who are the municipality's main priority, Azofeifa said.

“There are 1 million people coming into San José every day, and 80% of them are using public transportation,” she said. “Our policy is always to prioritize pedestrians.”

Tourism industry insiders yesterday applauded an 11.3% increase in the number of visitors to Costa Rica so far this year compared to the same number last year.

From January through September, 1,216,345 international tourists arrived to Costa Rica by air alone, 11.3% more than during the same period last year, according to a statement from the National Tourism Chamber (CANATUR).

The chamber obtained this number by counting tourists who entered the country through the country's two international airports – Juan Santamaría, just northwest of San José, and Daniel Oduber, in the northwestern Guanacaste capital of Liberia.

This represents a 16.3% growth in the number of visitors to Daniel Oduber and 9.6% more tourists to Juan Santamaría than last year.

Although these figures are “not official,” they “reflect the behavior of the sector and the growing tendency in the number of visitors,” since 78% of tourists to Costa Rica arrive by plane, the statement said.

These statistics show March, January and July as the months when the most tourists came here. In March, 163,433 tourists arrived, while 149,878 came in January and July saw 145,455 foreign tourists enter the country.

-Tico Times

It seemed there was literally a light at the end of the tunnel yesterday as the morning sun shined upon Costa Rica and the danger of communities drowning in floodwaters began to subside.

The National Emergency Commission (CNE) lifted all alerts in Costa Rica except for a yellow alert for the northwestern Guanacaste cantons of Carrillo, Cañas, Santa Cruz, Bagaces and Nicoya, according to a statement from the CNE.

Rain levels are returning to normal and people staying in shelters are beginning to return to their homes.

The CNE hopes to begin reconstruction in areas hardest hit by flooding once it receives the money it's scheduled to get from an emergency decree issued last week by President Oscar Arias (TT, Oct. 19).

Laura Chinchilla, acting President this week while Arias is in China, met Monday with 21 government institutions to urge them to transfer the ¢20 billion ($38.7 million) they owe the CNE.

This money will be used to repair roads and bridges washed away during floods and build homes for the 1,500 families whose houses were destroyed.