People are idiots, they rather spend an hour or an hour and a half during peak hours in bumper to bumper traffic going through Santiago, not to mention the risk of getting a flat tire with all the pot holes in some of the Avenues, the risk of getting into an accident especially with all those crazy concho drivers, the wearing down of your vehicles brakes, and being under that hellish sun, all to avoid 150 pesos (isn't that a gallon of gas?). I'm not saying the prices aren't a little high, especially if compare to other tolls, but who ever has to get to Puerto Plata or la linea and decides to go through Santiago instead of la Circunvalacion is un buen pendejo.
Something mentioned by Criss colon, is that the streets of Santiago are still clog with traffic, which is something I often hear people say. Well one of the things I would always say is that the circunvalacion was one of the many solutions the traffic in Santiago needs, but that is was far from being the holy grail that would fix the traffic problem in the city. I don't know how or in what language to explain to people that all those trucks, all that traffic they would see in Santiago before the circunvalacion, was in fact the MAJORITY local traffic, therefore even with the new highway all that traffic will not magically disappear.
I think the Circunvalacion is a great project, well built and one that Santiago needed. Is a step in the right direction, at least a good part of the non-Santiaguero traffic has been taken out of the city, now I hope the government ends up keeping its promise and keeps working on other solutions planned for the main avenues of the city. I personally love this new highway, you guys would not believe how quick I can make it from my house in Gurabo to the Cabanas in the Duarte Highway.
The vid posted by Nals looks good but Here's my video of the new highway, maybe you guys will get a good idea of where to take the new road:
[video=youtube;J_Dg3d8aAiQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Dg3d8aAiQ[/video]