C.J. Schexnayder Cracks in the roads hampered the delivery of assistance into the damage zone from Lima. LIMA, Peru – With the award of the final two contracts for the $1.3–billion Interoceanic Highway that will create a paved connection between Peru's Pacific coast and the Altlantic, the necessity for improvements for the country's North–South coastal corridor – the Pan–American Highway – has become even more critical. But when the 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck the southern coast of Peru earlier this month, it threw an ongoing upgrade effort into disarray. The Aug. 15 earthquake caused severe cracking along the highway and
While the glory days of the Spanish conquest have ebbed into the Peru's uneasy past, its capital remains a major modern metropolitan center with all the headaches that entails. Mass transit ranks high among the problems it is struggling to bring under control. Currently, the city has undertaken an ambitious public works program that is designed to transform the chaotic road system into an organized network of upgraded thoroughfares and efficient mass transit. The 20-year plan, an extension of efforts begun in the mid-1990s, has begun to take physical form with the Miguel Grau Freeway in the heart of central