Puente de Costa Rica

The bridge inherits its name from the street it extends. It crosses the M-30 at the so-called Costa Rica interchange and links the calle de Costa Rica with Arturo Soria, at the northern edge of the Hispanoamérica neighbourhood. That district was laid out as a tribute in stone and asphalt to the countries across the Atlantic: its streets and squares run through the map of the Americas, from Bolivia to Puerto Rico. The Costa Rica street names the small Central American republic, and the bridge carries that name as it crosses the motorway. Beneath it runs one of the busiest interchanges in eastern Madrid, where the traffic of Arturo Soria, Costa Rica, the Gran Vía de Hortaleza and the M-30 itself all converge. In December 2005, as part of the remodelling of the ring road, the Costa Rica tunnel was opened: some sixty-six thousand vehicles a day stopped passing along the surface of the plaza de José María Soler, and where cars once roared, thousands of metres were reclaimed for gardens. The pedestrian crossing the bridge today barely hears, below, the buried river of traffic.