Correos de Costa Rica (Costa Rica’s postal
department) has recently begun an ambitious and much needed revamping
of Costa Rica’s traditional postal address “system”.
With the new system, each building in San José will be
assigned an alpha numeric code based on the street or avenue that
passes in front, the intersecting street of the block where the
building is located (always the street with the lowest number)
and a number that indicates how far (in meters) the building’s
entrance is located from the intersection. Take, as an example,
the Tico Times offices located on 8th Ave. between 15th and 17th
streets. In this case, the address would be: Av8-Ca15-#15. Broken
down this means Av8 (8th Ave. which passes in front) Ca15 (Ca=Street,
15 (lowest intersecting street number)#15 (the entrance is located
15 meters from the intersecting street). If all this sounds complicated,
then you’ve never had to search for a hotel located: “6
km north of the Catholic Church in Matapalo, turn right at the
large mango tree and head 2 kilometers east – you can’t
miss it”!
Correos has already assigned 250,000 addresses
in San José and surrounding suburbs, including Escazú,
Curridabat, Tibás and Moravia. In order to get the job
done quickly and efficiently, the postal department has employed
a group of geographers to visit each area to collect data, interview
residents and assign reference numbers to buildings using digital
maps. In conjunction with this effort, the ICT (Costa Rica’s
Tourism Institute) is currently pressuring the MOPT (Ministry
of Public Works and Transportation to implement better and more
informative road signs on Costa Rica’s notoriously confusing
highways and byways. All this sounds too good to be true for the
myriad of disoriented tourists and visitors on the streets of
San José.
Although no one expects the new system to catch
on with ticos overnight, there is hope that experiencing the benefits
of an efficient postal system will tempt the public to adopt this
new way of “giving directions”. It will certainly
make life easier for the mailman.
