During the recent opening of the Sunscape Puerto Plata in Playa Dorada, Public Works Minister Gonzalo Castillo announced that the government plans to build a new road linking Santiago and Puerto Plata. The road will continue from the Circunvalacion Norte de Santiago, the Santiago city bypass, reaching Puerto Plata in 25 minutes, about half the current driving time. Castillo said that extending the new road meant that Puerto Plata would be under two hours’ drive from the capital city of Santo Domingo, as reported in El Caribe.
Castillo said, however, that the new road was still in the planning stage. The plan is for it to connect at Km. 18 of the Santiago bypass, cutting through the Septentrional Mountain Range and exiting to the Puerto Plata highway at La Gran Parada, more or less equidistant from both Puerto Plata city and Sosua.
