U.S., E.S. Inaugurate Northern Highway

Longest bridge on the Northern Highway, located between Ciudad Dolores in Cabañas y Nuevo Edén de San Juan, north of San Miguel.

On August 14, Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte joined President Mauricio Funes to inaugurate the completion of the final 25.2km stretch of the MCC-funded Northern Highway, which includes the project’s longest bridge linking the Departments of San Miguel and Cabañas.

The U.S. government, through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, invested $16.8 million in the building of this bridge, which spans 300 meters across the Lempa River from Ciudad Dolores in the Cabañas to Nuevo Edén de San Juan in San Miguel. The work is the third tallest bridge in El Salvador and will be benefit more than 44,000 habitants of the area, who could previously cross the River Lempa only by ferry.

The ceremony also recognized the completion of Sector 4B of the Northern Highway, a stretch of highway that begins at the Nuevo Eden de San Juan Bridge and extends 25.2 km into the Department of San Miguel. The highway cost $21.3 million to build, bringing the total cost for the bridge and Sector 4B to just over $38 million.

In her remarks, Ambassador Aponte noted that she was pleased with FOMILENIO’s work on the project for the people of El Salvador, and that “the U.S. investment, through MCC, has created conditions to allow Salvadorans to prosper, breaking the isolation that had prevented them from taking advantage of social and economic opportunities in the Northern Zone for decades.”

Construction of the new highway and associated bridges will reduce the transportation time and costs of production and commercialization of crops for residents of the Northern Zone. By doing so, it will facilitate access to new markets for local crops and possibly attract greater tourism to the Northern Zone. The Northern Highway reduces the time for the trip from Sensuntepeque to Nuevo Eden de San Juan from three hours to one hour.

Besides Ambassador Aponte and President Funes, Technical Secretary and the President of the FOMILENIO Board of Directors, Dr. Alexander Segovia; Minister of Public Works, Gerson Martinez; Minister of the Interior, Ernesto Zelayandia; local mayors and beneficiaries of the Northern Zone.