The Alvarado Bridge

Almost half way between Veracruz City and Catemaco lies the Illustrous, Generous and Heroic municipality and port of Alvarado, about the size of Catemaco, with app 49 thousand inhabitants. The city received all its titles because of its resistance to the U.S. invasion of 1846.

Located at the mouth of the Papaloapan River and surrounding lagoons, the city was a major bottleneck for north to south travelers in Veracruz. until 1964 when the existent bridge was dedicated. I crossed the 2 lane bridge the first time in 1966 and admired the hulks of the abandoned ferries resting around the 1850 feet long bridge. When I returned thirtyfive years later, they were still resting.

Since then the bridge has been plagued with maintenance problems and is frequently limited to one way traffic and occasionally closed over night. In 2006 a bus managed to fall off the bridge and kill 6 passengers.

The bridge is managed by CAPUFE, the federal Mexican toll road and bridges agency which has created a miniature town to operate 3 measly toll gates.  Replacement value of the bridge is 247 million pesos and I think that may be coming due within a few years, unless they let the bridge fall in the river like many other bridges in southern Veracruz.

The bridge is a boon for Alvarado which receives almost 9 million pesos annually from CAPUFE for being on county property. Users of the bridge pay 19 pesos for cars and 32 pesos and up for trucks. In 2009 more than 1.8 million vehicles crossed the bridge, about 5000 per day.

The bridge is the primary entrance to Los Tuxtlas. Other entries from the north south toll road at Cosamaloapan, Isla and Acayucan also contribute a minor share. Thus the number of users of the bridge is significant in understanding tourism in Catemaco.

The press parrots politicians claiming Los Tuxtlas to be the second or third most visited area in Veracruz, and throw around figures ranging from half to a million annual visitors, and for years I wondered why Los Tuxtlas was not attracting more outside touristic development.

I recently researched the Alvarado bridge in depth with the limited resources the Mexican government provides on the internet. I come up with a maximum of 500 thousand very seasonal visitors per year. No wonder Howard Johnson never learned to spell Catemaco.

You can see my spreadheet here (in Spanish)