The urban rail service currently enjoyed by commuters in the capital city of Panama could be adopted by Costa Rica at a cost of at least one billion dollars. Such was the report recently filed by Gustavo Retana of daily tabloid Diario Extra.

Mr. Retana quoted Rodolfo Cardenas, a civil engineer who led a group of professionals who traveled from San Jose to Panama City for the purpose of studying the metro project in that nation. According to Mr. Cardenas, a similar project could be undertaken in the capital city of Costa Rica to alleviate the stifling gridlock across the Greater San Jose Metropolitan Area (Spanish initials: GAM).

Mr. Cardenas believes that the current opposition to a metro project in San Jose is easy to defeat since there is no formal research to support the antagonism. The preliminary studies conducted by Mr. Cardenas’ group indicate that the proposed metro route would not require any eminent domain proceedings, which in Costa Rica are known to last several generations.

It is important to note that the engineering group evaluating the metro project is not opposed to the ongoing expansion of commuter trains connecting San Jose with Cartago, Heredia, sections of Pavas, and Alajuela in the future. Mr. Cardenas believes that other sectors need to be immediately alleviated, particularly Desamparados, Guadalupe and Curridabat.

Mr. Cardenas believes that the first metro routes should connect the cantons of Goicoechea and Desamparados so that commuters can skip Downtown San Jose. On the topic of funding, Mr. Cardenas believes that pension fund managers who are already enjoying healthy profits from investments in the urban train projects would be willing to invest in the San Jose metro. To this effect, the current commuter trains reached their passenger capacity long ago.

Funding will be the most difficult obstacle in the metro project. Several legislators are not pleased with reports of frivolous spending by the Rail Institute of Costa Rica, and thus they are prepared to block future funding.