The golden age of infrastructure or just aging infrastructure?

During rush hour on a rainy, slippery Wednesday night last week, the whole stretch of EDSA was a sea of red lights with thousands of cars stuck for hours on end in the monstrous traffic jam.

The heavy downpour made it worse and even if you’ve gone through the same ordeal before, the frustration is just as bad as the first time. There’s no escaping it especially if you live in Quezon City and you’re driving all the way from Makati. Perhaps it’s easier to leave a clingy lover than to get out of a snarl.

When stuck in traffic, I sometimes imagine myself fulfilling an item on my bucket list — driving on the Autobahn — fast, wild and free.

But most of the time, I really just stare at the paralyzed highway in front of me and wonder again and again — whatever happened to the new roads the government planned?

At least 654.98 kilometers of new roads

A year ago, I remembered listening to Public Works Secretary Mark Villar talk about his plans. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was not even part of my beat but I was eager to hear about his projects.

Villar unveiled DPWH’s ambitious P107-billion traffic decongestion program that aims to address the worsening traffic problem in the country.

The gridlock plaguing our streets is now costing P3.5 billion a day from a previous estimate of P2.4 billion a day, according to the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

During his talk, Villar discussed his many projects such as the Luzon Spine Expressway Network, which will connect 18 major expressways throughout the country, decongest the 24-kilometer EDSA and create a total of 654.98 kilometers.

Another project is the North Harbor Link which would enable trucks coming from the ports to go straight to the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX).

There’s also the Manila Skyway Stage 3 which will connect the South Luzon Expressway to Balintawak.

Yet another project is the NLEX-SLEX Connector Road, which will connect the two expressways and also decongest EDSA.

A year after, the projects are clearly facing delays because of the slow progress in acquiring the right of way (ROW).

The Connector Road’s proponent, the MVP Group’s Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., is still waiting for the formal turnover of the sites, which it was hoping to get this month.

But unfortunately, the DPWH has not yet completed the ROW acquisitions. It’s the same problem with other road projects, several industry sources told me.

It’s taking the agency forever to get this done.

Perhaps, Villar should hire more legal personnel to speed up the process. He can also ask the budget department to increase the allocation for ROW acquisitions. The DPWH should also work with the National Housing Authority (NHA) for faster relocation of affected settlers.

Flagship project

But we’re not only hampered by the lack of new roads but by the lack of other big-ticket infrastructure projects as well. We still don’t have an efficient mass transport system, new skyways, bridges and new airports.

Okay, there’s the recently launched new terminal of Megawide’s Mactan-Cebu International Airport which the Duterte administration claims as one of its flagship projects. But in truth, the contract for the Mactan airport and expanded terminal was awarded in 2014. It is not among the projects of the present government.

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade merely directed the Megawide boys to fast-track the completion of the project to a year earlier instead of 2019.

Still, the project no longer had any bottlenecks by the time the Duterte administration came in.

And this is what the administration should do with its flagship projects. The transportation department and other implementing agencies must pave the way for the infrastructure proposals to really move.

One way to do this is to do a comprehensive scrutiny of the financial and technical proposals before passing these back to private sector proponents. What is happening now is that the proposals just keep

going back and forth between the government and the proponents because of redundant questions and issues, industry sources said.

Almost two years ago, the Duterte administration promised to usher in the so-called golden age of infrastructure -- six airports, nine railways, three bus rapid transits, 32 roads and bridges and seaports – 75 flagship projects in all.

It’s an impressive list, really but until it happens, there’s really nothing much around us but mostly aging infrastructure.

In Greek mythology, the golden age denotes a period of stability and prosperity. It is said that during this time, people did not have to work because the earth provided more than enough food.

It could indeed be the perfect metaphor for the government’s infrastructure program but it hasn’t happened yet. The shovels haven’t moved and the cranes aren’t up yet.

And while it’s an exaggeration to liken the country’s current state of infrastructure to the Greek dark ages — when the government collapsed and people had nothing to eat — it’s certainly far from being golden and it would take a while before we can see even the faintest gleam.

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is eyesgonzales@gmail.com