More Metro subway construction diversions

Getting to San Tomas Hospital, and the  nearby National Hospital promises to be easier in the future, but first comes some short term pain.

Starting Tuesday August 16, meantime drivers can expect slow movement and traffic snarls. That’s when work  begins on the construction of the St. Thomas station for  the first leg of Panama’s Subway system, expected to be in place by 2014.

The work on the underground  station, the sixth on the line will begin with the relocation and improvement of the existing network of public services in the sector.

The first step will include the burying of overhead power lines and creating new water and sanitary conduits.

This work will be focus on a stretch of Justo Arosemena Avenue, between Calle 38 (at the height of buildings in the National Hospital) and Calle 40 (adjacent to the parking area of ??the hospital). The surrounding streets are usually packed with cars illegally parked on both sides of the roads, and are difficult to navigate on a normal day. Now some of them will be loaded with heavy public transportation, as well as the normal flow of traffic, and passengers traveling along Balboa will be forced to travel further to head up to Arosemena or Cuba.

So if you are Arosemena is one of your regular routes, stand by as you approach Santo Tomas and look for the signs sending you down 38, which at  the side of Santo Tomas and then you will have to turn left  past  the College of Lawyers until you see another sign sending you up 41 to return to Justo Arosemena Avenue by the University of the Isthmus.

The works on the St. Thomas will last 12 months and will be starting in October 25 meters underground.

The excavation of the tunnel began at the Albrook station  and crosses under the Plaza 5 de Mayo, the area of ??St. Thomas, the church of El Carmen, via Argentina, and will end at Plaza Agora on Transistmica.