A billion for walkway
Adopting infrastructure ideas from foreign countries, Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said he and his peers have committed to insert P1 billion in the national budget for the construction of an elevated walkway along EDSA.
During the Senate Committee on Public Works hearing on Wednesday, the panel discussed Zubiri's proposal to decongest the major thoroughfare by mobilizing commuters.
"We've gotten the commitments from the senators after I gave my (privilege) speech and they said 'let's put it in the budget, so we will find funds to make an institutional amendment for our fellow countrymen here in Metro Manila who are suffering from traffic (and) to aid the traffic (congestion)," he said.
"With the commitment from our senators, we have now a plan to insert in the budget a minimum of about P1 billion for these elevated walkways."
Zubiri suggested to create "all-weather" greenways madeofsteel along EDSA similar to the facilities built in Makati, Singapore and China.
He asked the Department of Transportation (DoTr) if it can implement the project before the term of President
Rodrigo Duterte expires in 2022.
Zubiri pointed out that he has proposed this in his first speech in 17th Congress last 2016. However, up until today his proposal was not given priority by the implementing agencies.
"Now the question is, can you implement this? Because we don't want this to be an unimplemented project. Once again funded but not implemented and the money will revert back to the national treasury or (it will) be utilized for something else. Because if not, we will not waste our time making institutional insertion because in the last hearing you said it is still in feasibility stage," Zubiri told DoTr.
The senator said that the walkway proposal of the agency was "too ambitious" and suggested to create simple walkways to provide solutions to the traffic crisis in EDSA.
He added that the DoTr could start the project in one area along EDSA, specifically from Guadalupe to Ortigas or Cubao to Ortigas.