Four Corners (Cuatro Altos) is the old intersection between the Canal Zone and the Republic of Panama that kept Colon from being an island within the Zone and the France Field - Coco Solo - Fort Randolph - Galeta area from being an island within the Republic. The Atlantic Side was never that big to begin with, but to the extent that it had a major intersection, this was it.

Those who care to read of this place's brief brush with international notoriety ought to read the International Commission of Jurists' report on the events of January 1964. Nobody was killed or wounded here, but some folks were unhappy about a road blockage.

And once the interfaces among Panama's major ports, the Colon Free Zone, France Field airport and the Panama Canal Railway are finished and the containers are shuttling back and forth in earnest, many more folks would be unhappy about blocked roads, seeing as the railroad tracks run right through the road intersection. That's why construction is underway to route the cars and trucks over the tracks.

This project should have been done a long time ago. There was money in the budget for it toward the end of the last administration, but a petty and vindictive former President Ernesto Pérez Balladares, whom Colon voters decisively rejected when he sought to change the constitution to allow himself a chance at another term in office, and who used his lame duck days to make things as miserable as possible for the incoming Moscoso administration, spent the money on something else. Had Mireya been paying attention to the nuts and bolts of government, she'd have taken steps to correct the situation immediately, but she had ribbons to cut and relatives to hire so she led the matter slide, months became years and the tracks and traffic bottleneck came.

It now appears that the problem will be resolved shortly. For some developers, that's seen as an opportunity rather than a headache. Some of the projects that were being touted a few years ago, like the ritzy hotel to serve Free Zone customers, look unrealistic and unlikely to get off the drawing board, but the last mangrove swamps around Four Corners are giving way to commercial development and a new Colon bus terminal.