The road to Punta Allen is about 80 percent repaired, as its lobster season reaches about 40 tons

The road from Tulum to Punta Allen, the fishing village at the far end of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, is about 80 percent repaired, Riviera Maya News reported on October 6, and residents say the difference is already showing. It comes as Punta Allen's Vigía Chico lobster cooperative passes the three month mark of its season with about 40 tons landed and its best remaining months, October to December, still to fish.

Jorge Alejandro Velázquez Cruz, a Punta Allen resident and finance committee member of the Vigía Chico fishing cooperative, said the work, though unfinished, has already improved traffic in and out of Punta Allen. The village lives mainly on fishing and tourism, he said, so the state of the road matters for both, and for the daily journeys of the people who live there. A road in better condition makes it easier for workers and visitors to travel between Punta Allen and Tulum.

March: a road in poor shape

Six months ago the picture was different. Ahead of the Punta Allen beach festival on April 4 and 5, the community's delegate, Guadalupe Cocom, described the road as "very deteriorated," with dunes, deep stretches and places where cars were being damaged. The options state and municipal authorities put on the table were a two step plan: scraping and leveling before Holy Week, then fuller repairs in May with state machinery and materials from the municipality to reinforce the surface.

May: a committee to watch the work

In May the municipality announced a citizens' committee to follow the project. The plan was to rehabilitate about 20 kilometers of road, on top of 17 kilometers worked on by earlier administrations, toward a connection of about 55 kilometers in all. The municipal secretary general, Johnny Monsreal Padilla, said state authorities had met in Punta Allen to formally set up the committee, which would oversee the work as agreed between the municipality and the state, help decide where each section starts and ends, and keep residents informed. He said citizen participation would be fundamental to guaranteeing transparency. The repairs answer a long standing demand from residents, tour operators and other local businesses in the reserve.

October: the lobster season so far

The cooperative's numbers came on October 5. The Vigía Chico cooperative has more than 70 members, and three months into the 2026 to 2027 season they have caught about 40 tons of lobster, against a usual annual catch of 50 to 60 tons. "We're getting there, we're doing well," Velázquez Cruz said. "Only the weather has turned a little these last weeks with the bad weather and the rain, but we've kept fishing." October, November and December are still to come, and conditions are better between July and December; from December onward, and above all in January and February, trips out to sea can fall off.

What 80 percent does and does not mean

The 80 percent figure was reported without a named source, we found no official progress report, and we found no completion date, final cost or published breakdown of which sections remain. The 20 kilometers in the current program are part of a much longer route, so a repaired stretch is not the same as a repaired road end to end, and in March the delegate's complaint was sand and dunes as much as potholes.

Still, for a village whose economy rests on fishing and tourism, the change is real and residents say they can feel it. It is also what the committee was set up to secure: a project agreed in spring and, by fall, progress the people who use the road can see. For a wider view of what the municipality has delivered this year, see our report on Tulum's second municipal report.

Sources: Riviera Maya News, October 6, 2026; La Jornada Maya, October 5, 2026 and May 11, 2026; Quintana Roo Hoy, March 29, 2026. Main image: "Tulum, Route 15, Road to Punta Allen," by Sharon Hahn Darlin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.