•NEW DELAY Completion of a second stretch of new highway that would cut travel time between the city of Guadalajara and the Pacific Coast resort of Puerto Vallarta will not be ready this year as originally promised but until the end of 2020, according to a Mexican Government report.
•LONG WAIT Originally planned to open in 2014, the 19 miles stretch of new road between the towns of Compostela and Las Varas in Nayarit State was part of a larger modernization plan that would reduce time from Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta from 5 to less than 3 hours in total.
•RESOURCES According to Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transport, the Compostela-Las Varas stretch is at 56% completion but enough financial resources will not be available until the end of 2019; construction is carried out by Grupo IDEAL owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim.
•DISPLEASURE Back in May, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had expressed his displeasure for the construction delays of the whole highway which totals 114 miles; in 2018, 909,000 US visitors flew in Guadalajara while 1 million flew in Puerto Vallarta.
