- Puerto Rico Highway 66
Puerto Rico Highway 66 is a short tolled expressway which starts in the city of Carolina (in an elevated intersection of PR-26 and PR-3), ends in the municipality of
Canóvanas (in an intersection with PR-3), and is being extended to the municipality of Rio Grande. It is only 10 kilometers long. It has currently few exits and has worked mainly to minimize traffic in the congested PR-3 in Carolina. It is called "Roberto Sánchez Vilella Expressway" which is also the name given to the much larger freeway PR-2 segment from Hormigueros to Ponce.Why 66?
PR-66 is, in reality, an extension of older expressway PR-26, as both expressways are attached (that is, there is no need to take an exit to enter the other expressway, much like PR-18 and PR-52). PR-66 was assigned that number after
U.S. Route 66 in the United States.Problems
PR-66 is very close to El Yunque and at the beginning caused problems between developers and environmental activists. Several actions of disobedience took place, including beams already installed being removed. The expressway was planned to be extended to Fajardo but due to the close presence of
El Yunque , it was accorded to be extended to Río Grande and connect to PR-3 which has several exits between that municipality and Fajardo, and it might be possible that PR-3 is converted into a complete freeway in that segment as it approaches PR-53.The short expressway is very expensive and many people still go through PR-3 as a consequence. There are no plans to turn the toll down. This results beneficial in the effect that PR-66 has low traffic almost all the time.
Puerto Rico Highway 26
PR-26 (Román Baldorioty de Castro), the main highway to the
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport , is connected to PR-66. It was converted to a freeway to minimize the traffic in PR-3 and PR-17, to grant better access to the Airport. Several exits exist to provide access to PR-187 (the main route to the Piñones area), PR-37 (Isla Verde) andPR-22 (José de Diego). The combined routes of PR-26 and PR-66 is about 27 kilometers long.ee also
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Puerto Rico Highway 3 References
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