Puerto Vallarta plans a 2026 Lluvia de Calles works push to pave more than 120 streets, if the new budget wins council approval.
The 2026 public works plan that Puerto Vallarta’s city hall is preparing comes with a simple promise: turn muddy, damaged neighborhood streets into paved roads at a pace the city has not seen in years.
Mayor Luis Ernesto Munguía has outlined a program he calls “lluvia de calles,” or “rain of streets,” that would see more than 120 streets paved or rehabilitated in 2026. The plan would be supported by an initial investment of about 300 million pesos. It could climb “above 600 million” if the city receives additional surplus funds next year, according to the mayor’s recent remarks to local media.
The new push builds on an ongoing shift in how Puerto Vallarta invests in basic infrastructure. Municipal reports for 2025 show the city already pouring money into concrete pavements, ecological cobblestone, river defenses and small neighborhood parks, moving beyond a long stretch in which many colonias saw little more than grading and temporary repairs on dirt streets.
At the same time, the mayor is trying to frame the project as more than a construction list. In his first annual report this October, he highlighted street and bridge works as part of an effort to make the city safer during the rainy season, saying he does not want children to cross swollen streams to reach school.
How the 2026 plan would be funded
The street program sits inside a much larger 2026 spending package that would give Puerto Vallarta a record budget if approved.
The draft expenditure budget for next year proposes total spending of just over 3.1 billion pesos, almost 500 million more than the city expects to spend in 2025. Within that plan, a little under half of all money would go to salaries and benefits, about a quarter to subsidies and transfers, and only a single-digit share to public investment and works.
One article of the draft budget details around 231 million pesos specifically for public works, while another breakdown describes about 7.4 percent of total spending under “inversión pública.” The mayor’s promise to dedicate about 300 million pesos to the new street program, with the option to push that figure toward 600 million if surplus funds materialize, would require combining regular investment lines with additional resources that often arrive later in the fiscal year.
For now, city council members are reviewing the budget chapter by chapter. By law, they have 10 days from the proposal’s presentation to analyze and, if necessary, modify the figures before voting. The mayor has said he expects the 2026 budget to be ready for approval by mid-December, which would give his administration a clear runway to launch works early in the new year.
The first stage of that rollout already has a date on the calendar. In a separate interview, Munguía said four streets around the main plaza in the La Floresta neighborhood will be among the first to be rehabbed under Lluvia de Calles, along with a Tukilandia children’s park there. Work is scheduled to start on January 6, 2026.
Puerto Vallarta street paving
The promise of Puerto Vallarta street paving on this scale did not appear overnight. The Lluvia de Calles concept has been taking shape in public statements since at least August, when the mayor first spoke of a “historic” package to rehab about 70 streets during 2026. A few weeks later, he raised that number, saying that with detailed planning, the program could reach 100 streets, and now he is talking about more than 120.
Alongside the rhetoric, there is some evidence that the city has been building up the technical and financial capacity to support a bigger program. A quarterly report from the municipal Infrastructure and Public Works Department covering April to June 2025 lists a series of recent projects: hydraulic concrete pavements in colonias such as Lomas del Progreso and Los Sauces, ecological cobblestone on neighborhood streets, and the construction of several Tukilandia parks. That same report notes more than 165 kilometers of dirt streets graded and rehabilitated with municipal machinery during that period.
The Lluvia de Calles plan would effectively convert part of that constant, low-profile street-maintenance effort into a concentrated push to leave more durable pavement in place. City officials have said the program will mix hydraulic concrete and improved cobblestone, and, in some cases, pair paving with upgrades to drainage and water lines below the surface, to avoid reopening new streets in the short term.
For residents in hillside colonias and outlying neighborhoods, the stakes are practical. Many of the streets that could be included in the 2026 package are routes that turn to mud in heavy rain or throw up dust in the dry season, making daily life harder for people who walk to work, school or the bus stop. The mayor argues that paving those streets, along with reinforcing riverbeds and bridges, is part of a broader push to cut risk during storms and give families safer, more predictable access in and out of their communities.
Exactly which 120-plus streets will be chosen has not yet been made public. Earlier comments from the mayor suggest that city engineers and the public works director are still building a priority list based on technical studies and neighborhood needs. The administration has described the coming year as “very proactive” and heavy on investment. Still, final decisions will depend on how much money council members are willing to earmark for works rather than salaries, subsidies and debt in the 2026 budget.
For now, residents have two clear signals to watch. One is the budget vote in December, which will show how much room the city actually has to spend on paving. The other is January 6, when crews are supposed to break ground in La Floresta. If that start date holds and contracts move quickly, the Lluvia de Calles program could begin to change the feel of many neighborhoods over the course of 2026. If delays or cutbacks hit early, it will be harder for the administration to meet the expectations it has just raised.
