Toll bridge in San Pedro, Belize - for peds, bikes, golfcarts

Andrew Terhune who vacationed recently in Belize passes on this account and accompanying pictures of a modest city owned toll bridge in San Pedro. Called the Boca del Rio Bridge in english and Nuestro Puente Boca del Rio in spanish it is built just stoutly enough to carry pedestrians, bicycles, golf carts and golf carts with trailers - no full motor vehicles.

Opened in 2006 it bridges a 30m (100ft) channel in Ambergris Caye, a 25 mile by 1 mile (40km x 1.5km) barrier island off the British dominion of Belize. Belize, population 300k on 23k km2 (9k sq miles) formerly British Honduras is just south of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, east of Guatemala and north of Honduras. Ambergris Cay is Belize' major resort area with fishing, diving and coconuts.

The town has encouraged the use of lowspeed golfcart-like vehicles rather than full motor vehicles, so when they replaced a ferry with a toll bridge it was built with a steel grill deck with a pair of approx 1.8m (6ft) lanes wide enough for cyclists, motorbikes and the small 4-wheelers plus a pedestrian lane. Tradesman and service vehicles are golfcarts with a  trailer.

Centerline precludes fullsized vehicles

A centerline barrier precludes fullsized motor vehicles from using the bridge.

The bridge is the only means of road access between San Pedro and the sparsely inhabited northern half of the Ambergris Cay island which extends up close to Mexico.

Traffic between San Pedro and mainland Belize is 75 minutes by water taxi or light plane across a lagoon and Chetumal Bay. Heavy supplies such as building materials are typically moved by boat.

The Boca del Rio Bridge allows pedestrians free passage, but charges bicycles $1 (B$2@ B$=50c), motorcycles $2.50 (B$5), golf carts $5 (B$10) and golf carts with a  trailer $10 (B$20).  There's a single toll booth manned 7am to 9pm.

These are roundtrip tolls paid northbound. A ticket taken on payment of the toll is proof of payment for southbound travel.

"Useful in developing country"

Terhune says the city could not have afforded the bridge without a toll revenue stream and it "demonstrates that even in developing nations, toll facilities can be a useful adjunct to development."

He says a lot of tourist oriented construction happening on the north side would probably not be happening if there were not a bridge to connect the north side to the town and airstrip.

He says: "My guess is that is it will be a few years before we see electronic tolling on this bridge."

http://ambergriscaye.com/

TOLLROADSnews 2009-01-10