Amber Highway costs the same as 400 km of priority tourist roads

Santo Domingo. –The patriotic, tourist, and environmental campaign RD por lo Alto presented today a proposal that demonstrates that the approximately RD$32,000 million estimated for the 32-35 km of the Ámbar Highway would be sufficient to finance more than 400 kilometers of strategic tourist roads with two and four lanes that the country urgently needs and that currently do not exist or are in precarious conditions.

Using actual costs of works executed in the last 10 years by the MOPC (average RD$65-85 million per kilometer on two-lane roads with rehabilitation and expansion), the same investment would allow the execution of the following priority corridors identified in both the National Tourism Development Plan and the master plans of the tourism clusters:

1 Definitive Access Miches – Sabana de la Mar – El Seibo (new 68 km coastal road that today forces you to go around the area, extending the journey by 3 hours). 2 Expansion and reconstruction Sabana de la Mar – Sánchez – Las Terrenas (75 km in critical condition). 3 Montecristi – Dajabón – Loma de Cabrera Highway (new 82 km bypass that directly connects to the future Port of Manzanillo and border tourism). 4 Barahona – Enriquillo – Pedernales Circuit (95 km, including the Oviedo-Pedernales section which is practically impassable in the rainy season). 5 Jarabacoa – Constanza – Valle Nuevo – San José de Ocoa (80 km of mountain road with high tourist and agricultural demand, currently with sections of dirt and deteriorated asphalt). In total: more than 400 km of new roads or structural rehabilitations that would directly connect the emerging hubs with the international airports of Punta Cana, Las Américas, Puerto Plata, El Catey and Cabo Rojo (under construction). “These are not invented projects: they appear as priorities in the official documents of Mitur, the World Bank, the IDB and the tourism clusters themselves for more than a decade. Today they remain unexecuted due to lack of budget,” explained RDPorLoAlto. The proposal highlights that, while the Autopista del Ámbar has an estimated cost of RD$915 million per kilometer, the suggested corridors would be executed with adequate safety and drainage standards at a real average cost of between RD$70 and RD$85 million per kilometer, multiplying the territorial impact by 10 and directly benefiting five regions of the country instead of just one. RDPorLoAlto reiterates that its objective is to provide an objective and well-founded technical proposal for the authorities and the National Congress to evaluate the best possible allocation of public resources, prioritizing a more equitable, sustainable tourism development with greater social and environmental reach.