While crossing bridges around San José used to just be time-consuming – it may be getting quicker, even though potentially more tongue-tying.

The newly inaugurated, widened bridge connecting San José’s La Uruca with Heredia via Pozuelo-Jardines de Recuerdo has been named after Costa Rican writer Yolanda Oreamuno (1916-1956).

Better not try out the pronunciation while navigating traffic, there’s enough you need to keep your mind on. But with the newly opened four lanes, two in each direction, available over the Virilla River in this heavily traversed sector, traffic between San José and Heredia might loosen up a bit.

It may take longer for the new name of the other larger Virilla River bridge to stick. The one connecting San José with westward points such as Cariari, Alajuela and beyond has for years been called, and usually not affectionately, the “Platina.”

Over the years, the Platina has suffered all types of name-calling and verbal abuse as travelers have put up with one botched repair job after another, resulting in endless traffic jams. And the name just sort of rolls off the tongue, especially compared to the new name, the “Alfredo González Flores” bridge.

This finally, totally revamped structure, in all its earthquake-proof glory, and with three lanes in each direction, will be fully operational by April 30, say government officials.

Officials are readying to completely opening three lanes of this main bridge this week, thus easing up congestion from the reduced 2-lane flow imposed over the past almost two months of intensive construction work.

The new bridge needed a new name, said officials, so why not name it after a former President? What’s not named after a former president, in Costa Rica you can be sure is named after a doctor or a writer, and will most likely be a mouthful.

Alfredo González Flores was Costa Rica’s president from 1914-1917, and couldn’t finish his term because he was ousted by the country’s last dictator, Federico Tinoco, in a coup. Well, let’s just hope the new bridge lasts its full term.

The dramatic histories behind the namesakes of these two bridges parallel in many ways the past decades of struggles to get roads, bridges, and other basic infrastructure started, and then, even more impossibly, finished.

The administration of Luis Guillermo Solís has made it a top priority to tackle these long overdue construction projects, and is moving forward with completing the San Ramón-San Carlos highway, the San Ramón-San José highway, as well as the Moín port expansion, the northern San José beltway project, and others that have languished on paper, many for decades, to the extreme frustration of tax payers.

The President’s office announced earlier this month that on March 15, the three lanes connecting Alajuela to San José over the remodeled Alfredo González Flores bridge over the Virilla River will be completed, and officials will thus accordingly expand traffic in both directions to minimize delays while the final three lanes are completed.

Until then, you’ve got a day or two to practice the new names.