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macrolibramiento heading west


camillenparadise

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And unfortunately there is no discernible progress on the cuota from Mazatan to Las Varas and points south. You still have to exit toward Compostela and head south on Hwy 200.

There are traffic slowdowns as you approach La Peñita, more specifically from the entrance to Costa Canuva 10km north where there is a massive effort to widen the road to 4 lanes. Bridge abutments are being constructed and there's not much between the existing 2 lane road and the 4 foot drop-off into the excavation that will be the new 2 lanes. Careful. Fortunately the tropical storm didn't cause any damage on Hwy 200 even through there were reports of sections of the road being washed out. PV got hit harder with massive rainfall as the storm passed through yesterday.

There are also possible slow parts of Hwy 200 between Sayulita and Bucerias where many bridges are being constructed for the new cuota that cross Hwy 200 over and over again.

From a neighbor in Guayabitos that is working at Costa Canuva, the Fairmount Hotel has broken ground, lots for new houses have been sold, the marina is under construction and the new golf course is moving toward completion. The new development of homes, condos and the hotel are attracting a lot of interest from people in Guadalajara. 

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Going north we find the time about the same if you go via Jocotepec and Lopez Mateos Sur to join up with the macrolibremiento.  One less toll too.

There is construction at the junction of the Manzanillo cuota and the road coming out of Jocotepec.  Not sure how this will affect that route as we haven't been through there for a while.

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Ajiic to Guayabitos has been consistently a little under 4 hours although as that widening construction south of Las Varas ramps up there could be new delays.

It normally takes about 75 minutes or so to get from Guayabitos to the PV airport although the same caveat applies to the cuota construction between Sayulita and Bucerias continues. 

In both areas, traffic is often stopped to allow trucks and heavy machinery to move across the highway. At times one lane is closed for a stretch so there can be delays when traffic alternates on the one open lane.

There's less chance of getting caught in either of these situations on the weekend.

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2 hours ago, conejorapido said:

What's the drive time from Ajijic to PV these days?

And if one wants to, one can make that same trip by going through Mascota. Before all the construction started, it was about the same timeframe going either way. Through Mascota might challenge some folks who prefer using cuotas as much as possible, but.....

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22 hours ago, John Shrall said:

Ajiic to Guayabitos has been consistently a little under 4 hours although as that widening construction south of Las Varas ramps up there could be new delays.

It normally takes about 75 minutes or so to get from Guayabitos to the PV airport although the same caveat applies to the cuota construction between Sayulita and Bucerias continues. 

In both areas, traffic is often stopped to allow trucks and heavy machinery to move across the highway. At times one lane is closed for a stretch so there can be delays when traffic alternates on the one open lane.

There's less chance of getting caught in either of these situations on the weekend.

It's not so much the new highway construction that's causing the line-ups and slow downs lately as it is the new paving. I will never understand the absurd way they deal with traffic when only one side of the highway is passable. They make one side wait until about 3 kilometers of traffic is backed up before they change sides. Traffic was stopped and backed up solid all the way from San Quintin to Guamuchil the other day. I've sat there for up to 30 minutes one day while counting the vehicles coming from the other direction. 250. If they let 20 at a time go from each side, it would keep the traffic flowing instead of 2 kms of cars being stuck behind giant double semi trailers and overloaded trucks with nowhere to pass for next hour. This is exactly the kind of thing that leads to frustrated drivers passing on blind curves leading to horrible accidents.

Lately I've been taking the Punta de Mita highway from Sayulita to Bucerias- it's a longer distance, but you can drive quite fast and there are no traffic hold-ups.

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Be thankful that Mexico doesn't widen roads like Guatemala. About 10 years ago we drove to Antigua crossing at La Mesilla which dumps out onto the Pan American Highway. The one side backup occurred every few miles because the country decided to widen the entire highway at the same time. There however, the road is cluttered with chicken buses that jump the stopped lane to get to the front of the queue. One of them actually tried to pass on the right but tipped over right next to us into a culvert. These were old Blue Bell school buses from the US painted and chromed up to haul people and animals.

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It was much longer than 10 years ago when I was last in Guatemala, but I remember those buses well.

A year or so ago they were doing work on the Ameca bridge going south into Vallarta. The traffic was backed up at a crawl all the way to the north exit to Nuevo Vallarta. Of course there were the a-holes who decided to use the shoulder to pass all the other cars and then force someone to let them deek in down the line, as if it's much more important that they get where they are going sooner than others. At the last exit from Nuevo, there was a transito busting those jerks. I blew him a kiss. Nice to see a transito actually doing something useful, not just looking for someone to hassle.

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