Activity at our Round-about

The road work has finally begun!

Our round-about, at Av Las Americas is beinging replaced with an underpass.  Planning for this huge project is done and now the work has actually started.  Should be all done in about a year or so.

This is the round-about that connects Av Las Americas, Av Ordonez Lasso and Gran Colombia (G Colombia changes its name to Lasso at the intersection.)  Traffic is very crazy here!  It's probably the most dangerous intersection for us walkers.  We all are hoping the redesign will make it less crazy and safer to cross on foot when all the work is finished.

When we returned to Cuenca from the Coast right before New Year's, some traffic was already being rerouted around the site.  We are anticipating traffic down our street and along the river will increase soon, once the street construction is in full swing.

Here are workers in the circle.  We took this pic as we zoomed by in a taxi on our way home last week down some side streets.

  Gardeners are digging up plants, another worker is measuring the statue of Simon Bolivar (not sure why, maybe for storage or shipping?).

Pictures from today show the work is now gearing up! 

We decided to take a walk to downtown for lunch.  As we headed toward the round-about, this is what greeted us... 
Workers had the statue down off the pedestal and ready to load in the truck. 

Traffic was diverted, barricades were up, heavy equipment was everywhere. 

Road signage across the closed road has been removed.

Walking past SuperMaxi...parking lot was NOT crowded as it usually is.  You can still walk along Las Americas, but cars have been diverted around. 

You drive into SuperMaxi from only 1 direction now.

After lunch, we headed back to SuperMaxi to shop.  NOT crowded at all.  Lots of places to park.

But, hard to find a taxi...this nice young man from SuperMaxi helped flag us one so we could get the groceries home.

During our walk to town, we noticed several other streets with detours...  This massive project is impacting other neighborhoods as well.

This little guy didn't seem to mind the longer way around.










We can hardly wait to see how it all turns out!