The Departamento de Inspección Vial y Demoliciones of the MOPT shall ensure strict compliance with the provisions of articles 126 and 219 of Law No. 7331, "Ley de Tránsito por Vías Públicas Terrestres"; and of articles 19 and 28 of Law No. 5060, "Ley General de Caminos Públicos" and its reforms, by reason of which no type of construction of restricted accesses located within the right-of-way (derecho de vía) of the Restricted Access Highways and not authorized by the C.C.A.R. shall be permitted.
For the above purposes, the Departamento de Inspección Vial y Demolición shall proceed to notify those who occupy, use, enjoy, and/or permit unauthorized accesses on these highways, so that within a non-extendable period of fifteen business days, counted from receipt of the written warning, they close said accesses; otherwise, their closure shall proceed without prejudice to the sanctions stipulated in Law No. 7331, "Ley de Tránsito por Vías Públicas Terrestres" and other corresponding legal actions for the closure of illegal accesses, for which the MOPT must provide the necessary resources." "Article 8º-The Comisión de Carreteras de Acceso Restringido. The "Comisión de Carreteras de Acceso Restringido" is constituted, which shall be composed of the following members:
- a)The Minister of Public Works and Transport or their representative, who shall preside over it, with the understanding that in the event of a tie in the voting on agreements, they shall have the casting vote (voto de calidad).
- b)A lawyer from the MOPT, appointed by the Minister of Public Works and Transport.
- c)An engineer from the Secretaría de Planificación Sectorial, with experience in road engineering (vialidad), appointed by the Minister of Public Works and Transport.
- d)The Director of the Dirección General de Ingeniería de Tránsito of the MOPT or their representative.
- e)The Director of Bridges or their representative, appointed by the Minister of Public Works and Transport.
- f)The Head of the Departamento de Previsión Vial of the MOPT.
Furthermore, the C.C.A.R. shall have a staff Engineer who shall be responsible for inspecting.
The members of the C.C.A.R. shall not receive per diem allowances (dietas) nor any other type of emolument for the exercise of their functions on the referred Commission.
The Commission shall meet ordinarily once a week and extraordinarily as many times as required.
The decisions, voting, and the minimum quorum for this Commission to meet shall be governed by the provisions of Title II, Chapter Three of the Ley General de la Administración Pública." "Article 9º-The functions of the members of the Commission.
9.1 The functions and responsibilities of the President of the Comisión de Carreteras de Acceso Restringido shall be:
- a)To exercise the Presidency of the Commission.
- b)To receive the requests from interested parties.
- c)To prepare the agenda to be discussed.
- d)To convene sessions.
- e)To prepare the minutes of the sessions, organize and maintain a file of the actions submitted for the knowledge of the Commission, as well as of the sessions.
- f)To submit reports of the Commission.
For such purposes, the President of the Commission shall have the assistance of a professional Secretary in Law and a clerk.
9.2 The Director of the Dirección General de Ingeniería de Tránsito or their representative, as a member of the cited Commission, shall be responsible for analyzing, reviewing, and resolving the traffic impact studies (estudios de impacto vial), as well as any other type of study that may be required, related to the specific nature of this Directorate, including the road signage (señalamiento vial) of the requested accesses.
They must also state their opinion on the measures that should be technically adopted.
9.3 The Engineer from the Secretaría de Planificación Sectorial with experience in road design who is part of this Commission, must review the requests submitted to the Commission, in relation to the geometric design of the accesses, as well as the pavement structure recommended by the developer.
With respect to the Pavement Structure, the Dirección General de Ingeniería de Tránsito of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport shall provide the respective advisory service.
9 .4. The lawyer from the MOPT must provide legal opinions (dictámenes) for the analysis of requests and the preparation of reports and recommendations. Furthermore, they shall be responsible for advising on responses to the appeals (acciones recursivas) filed by private parties.
9.5 The Head of the Departamento de Previsión Vial of the MOPT shall ensure respect for the conservation of the State's rights-of-way on national routes. Likewise, they shall issue the corresponding alignments on properties that intend to have access to a national route.
9.6 The Director of Bridges or their representative shall ensure the adequate structural design of grade-separated crossings (pasos a desnivel), and shall issue reports and recommendations with the measures that should be technically adopted.
"Article 12.-Place for receiving requests and attached documents. Every request, whether preliminary draft (anteproyecto) or project (proyecto), to obtain the construction authorization for accesses to adjoining properties on restricted access highways shall be submitted to the C.C.A.R., in original and four faithful and identical copies in all their aspects to said original, with a digital backup in .doc, .dwg, and .xls format, depending on the document in question, in an updated version. The copies submitted in material form shall be collated, to verify fidelity with the originals, at the moment of submission, and all the documents and requirements referred to in article 10 of this Regulation shall also be provided. One set of copies shall be returned to the applicant with the corresponding received stamp and stating the delivery of the documents submitted, once it has been verified that it constitutes a faithful copy, assigning it a registration code." "Article 14.-Administrative Resolution of the Comisión de Carreteras de Acceso Restringido. Once it is verified that the applicant has complied with all the requirements established in this Regulation, as well as the approval by the D.G.I.T. of the Traffic Management and Preventive Work Zone Signage Plan, the C.C.A.R. in the next session shall forward said documentation to the competent Units for them to proceed to issue the pertinent recommendations. The Commission shall have ten business days to issue a ruling.
If the approval of the access is deemed procedent, the C.C.A.R. shall issue the Project Approval, immediately placing the respective stamp on the project plans.
Once the corresponding construction permit (permiso de construcción) from the Municipality has been issued, the interested party must submit a copy thereof to the C.C.A.R., who shall warn them (lo prevendrá) so that within a period of ten business days they proceed to make a Quality and Performance Guarantee Deposit (Depósito de Garantía de Calidad y Cumplimiento) before the MOPT for an amount of ten percent of the total cost of the access work to be carried out, with a validity of no less than the term of the access work plus three months after its completion. Said Guarantee shall be required to guarantee the construction quality of the access work and for possible unforeseen issues with the project, as well as for the timely completion of the work under the established terms, conditions, and deadline. Also, the interested party, within a period of ten business days, must make an inspection deposit for the access work of two percent of the total cost of the work, which shall be applied to compensate the MOPT for the administrative expenses of the C.C.A.R. (inspection, personnel, office equipment, transportation equipment, office materials and instruments, premises, etc.).
Both the Quality and Performance Guarantee Deposit, and the Work Inspection Deposit, shall be made into the accounts that the MOPT shall assign for these purposes and within the deadlines established in this Regulation, under the understanding that their omission or provision for a lesser amount shall make it impossible to approve the construction of the respective access.
Once the interested party provides a copy of the construction permit for the development, issued by the Appraisal Office - Plan Approval (Oficina de Tasación - Visado de Planos) of the Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y Arquitectos de Costa Rica and the corresponding Municipality, and provides the Quality and Performance Guarantee as well as the corresponding Work Inspection Deposit, the Commission shall issue the respective act (Administrative Resolution) of Construction Authorization, within the following seven business days.
All deadlines established in this Regulation shall be computed once the interested party complies satisfactorily with the requirements given by the competent Units or this Commission.
The Commission may deny the request when, after the deadline referred to in the preceding article has elapsed, any of the established requirements have not been met or when, for duly substantiated technical, timeliness, or convenience reasons, it is determined that if the access were to be built according to the project design formulated by the interested party, it would in some way affect traffic and road safety or the constructive quality requirements regarding public roads. Said act may be appealed in accordance with the terms of this Regulation." "Article 17.-Deadline for the execution of accesses. Every access whose construction is authorized must begin, be completed, and enter into full operation, in accordance with the technical guidelines approved by the Commission, within a period not exceeding six months counted from the notification of the Construction Authorization. In exceptional cases, said period may be extended at the request of the interested party, if the C.C.A.R., prior to the project approval, verifies that - due to the magnitude and/or complexity of the work-, a longer period is required for the construction of the work.
If delays occur for reasons not attributable to the developer of the access work project, duly verifiable, the interested party must notify it within a period of 4 calendar days to the Commission, so that it may proceed to assess said situation in order to modify the execution deadline or grant an extension, if such is procedent.
Outside of these cases, failure to carry out the work in a manner different from that authorized or failure to meet the current deadline, shall empower the Commission to execute the quality and performance guarantee and the interested party must finish constructing the access exactly as it was approved by this Commission.
If there is a delay of more than 50% of the work progress, upon the expiration of the current deadline, the Inspector Engineer of the C.C.A.R. must recommend the intervention of the project by the MOPT to restore the original conditions of the road; furthermore, the C.C.A.R. shall declare the abandonment of the Project, proceeding to cancel the authorization. If this case occurs, the MOPT shall execute the Quality and Performance Guarantee." "Article 26.-Financial Resources. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport, through the Dirección General de Ingeniería de Tránsito, shall carry out inspections and closures of illegal accesses with the ordinary operating budget."