During my last trip to Costa Rica the new highway from San Jose/Alajuela to the Pacific Ocean opened. After almost 40 years of planning, protests by environmentalists and delays, the new highway opened. Having driven both the old road and the new road - the new road is as nice as any highway you would find in the United States.
The 80 Km (48 miles) highway will cut up to 90 minutes off of the drive time from San Jose to southern destinations including Jaco, Quepos, and even Dominical, Uvita, and Ojochal, etc. It is a smooth ride and I can now comfortably tell clients that it is an easy AND simple drive from San Jose's international airport (SJO) to the Southern Pacific region. The old mountainous road was a tedious, at times trecherous, drive, with very few chances to pass if you were stuck behind a slow moving vehicle or truck.
Here's a map of the route.
It is a toll road and costs approximately $4 (2,000 colones) to travel the entire stretch of road. Hopefully MOPT will reinvest the funds to keep the highway in great shape.
The road from Quepos to Dominical is also almost complete - I expect that to be completely done by July 2010. In January 2010, the 'big machines' were working at the Dominical section of the road and all but approximately 2 km of the road is complete.