Duterte’s dream train and Metro Manila’s traffic saviors
One of the more ambitious infrastructure projects under the Duterte administration’s Build Build Build (BBB) program is the Mindanao railway system, covering around 2,000 kilometers of tracks linking at least 12 major cities of the Philippines’ second largest island.
Dubbed as Duterte’s dream train, it may very well take another decade – or maybe more – to complete judging by the way the first phase of the proposed Mindanao Railway Project Loop continues to face obstacles that have delayed groundbreaking by almost three years now.
Phase 1, which will have eight commuter stations from Tagum to Digos, is expected to finally start in the first quarter of this year. Barring any delays, partial operation is seen during the second quarter of 2022, the last months of President Duterte’s term.
Full completion and operation is expected earliest by the fourth quarter of 2022, that is, if there will not be any serious right of way issues despite the allocation of funds to settle land acquisition in areas where the tracks and stations will be built.
Because of the delayed start of Phase 1, the project’s second phase extending the railway system by 206.2 kilometers stretching to Butuan City was delisted from the BBB roster last year. Phase 3 too, which completes the loop with another 521.52 kilometers, will remain pretty much a pipe dream.
Still, Mindanaoans are already excited about the prospect of the first railway tracks being laid this year, something that had only been dreamt of since 1930 when such a proposal first came to light.
Growth enabler
To be largely financed through Chinese official development assistance, the 102-kilometer Tagum-Davao-Digos line carries a tab of P82 billion and is intended to benefit 130,000 commuters a day on its first full year of operations. It will cut travel time from end-to-end destinations from 3.5 hours to 1.3 hours.
More than the commuter ridership value, the train system includes 15 freight cars, with provision for future tracks and electrification. The project is seen to accelerate further growth in an area that carries enormous potential to contribute to the country’s gross domestic productivity.
In 2018, despite a state of Martial Law resulting from the Marawi siege in May 2017, a number of Mindanao provinces still posted high gross regional domestic product growth rates that contributed to keeping the Philippine GDP scores afloat despite global turmoil.
Davao contributed 8.6 percent, with the former ARMM at 7.2 percent, Northern Mindanao at seven percent, SOCCSKSARGEN at 6.9 percent, and the Zamboanga Peninsula at 6.3 percent.
Let’s hope that Phase 1 bears lessons that can help speed up the completion of the train loop dream, especially since China has repeatedly stated that it is committed to securing the funds for the construction of the whole project.
Green light at last!
The news that is setting the Metro Manila’s traffic-weary commuters abuzz these days is the nearing opening of Skyway Stage 3, inaugurated in 2014 but delayed for a few years from the original schedule due to right of way issues, diversions from the original route, and additions in length.
San Miguel Corp.’s Citra Central Expressway Corp. (CCEC) has promised to deliver the completed project by April this year with eight more toll plazas added to those of Skyway 1 and 2, and extending the elevated expressway from the Susana Heights exit in the South to the North Luzon Expressway.
It claims to cut travel time from the tollgate of Balintawak in Quezon City to that of Buendia in Makati in just 15 to 20 minutes, and even in shorter time if you will enter from any of the in-between entrance ramps.
There has been no word yet how much toll will be charged on users, this being muted by the exuberant declarations of how much traffic will be diverted from the congested EDSA and C-5 roads. If you go by the standard P10 to P11 per kilometer charge allowed by the Toll Regulatory Board, the full 18-kilometer stretch should cost you about P200 more.
More skyways
There is also a Skyway Stage 4. Again, this is shaping up to be another epic project in the making, if the current revisions in the original plan are to be considered. Yes, delays will be among the issues that will have to be reckoned with.
More than twice longer than the original Stage 3, this elevated road will bridge FTI in Taguig and Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City. The starting estimated cost of the project is at P45 billion, just a billion pesos shy of the rumored total cost of Stage 3.
This project, of course, is with San Miguel Corp., although with another joint-venture partner.
An NLEX elevated road connector project is also underway, this time with concessionaire Metro Pacific Tollway Development Corp., that will run for 13.24 kilometers bridging Buendia to its newly opened NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10 elevated road.
SMC had recently submitted an unsolicited bid to build a 10-lane elevated road on EDSA to decongest traffic on the metro’s currently busiest road. The government is assessing the proposal. If accepted, Metro Manila could soon become the world’s first skyway city.
How much and up till when all these private sector initiatives will help in healing the capital’s traffic woes is anybody’s guess given the fact that traffic is not just confined to the main thoroughfares and that the metro’s human and vehicle population continues to expand.
Still, we have to be thankful for these private sector initiatives.
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