{"id":242806,"date":"2020-01-22T19:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-23T00:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=242806"},"modified":"2020-01-24T01:18:44","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T06:18:44","slug":"edsa-decongestion-deliverable-within-dutertes-term-dpwh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/01\/22\/edsa-decongestion-deliverable-within-dutertes-term-dpwh\/","title":{"rendered":"Edsa decongestion \u2018deliverable\u2019 within Duterte’s term: DPWH"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Vehicles including motorcycles crowd the southbound lane of Epifanio Delos Santos Ave. (EDSA) in Quezon City on Monday morning (September 9, 2019). According to a 2017 Japanese government-funded study, the resulting gridlock in Metro Manila costs about USD67 million daily in lost productivity. (PNA photo by Joey O. Razon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The current administration will be able to deliver on its promise to decongest Edsa, the main and busiest thoroughfare in Metro Manila, within the six-year term of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Palace reporters, DPWH Secretary Mark Villar expressed confidence that the Duterte government can restore the \u201coriginal capacity\u201d of vehicles plying Edsa every day to 280,000 from the current 400,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we do. That was the intention,\u201d Villar said in a weekly economic briefing at Palace, when asked if Duterte would be able to fulfill a vow to decongest Edsa under his watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, for the past few years, the President has personally been active in the right-of-way of these flagship projects and nag-assign kami ng mga team para tutukan itong Edsa decongestion project (we assigned teams to focus on the Edsa decongestion project). So we are confident that by the end of the term of the President, Edsa will be back to its original capacity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Since it was not cost-efficient to \u201cwiden\u201d Edsa, Duterte has come up with a \u201cstrategy\u201d by pushing for an Edsa decongestion program, which involves the construction and rehabilitation of 13 roads and expressways, as well as 10 bridges in the country\u2019s metropolis, Villar emphasized.<\/p>\n

Villar said the PHP384-billion worth of program would provide alternative linkages between major thoroughfares and raise the number of usable roadways, a move that is seen to address the perennial traffic problem along Edsa and other major roads in Metro Manila.<\/p>\n

The road or expressway projects include NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10; NLEX Harbor Link R-10 Exit Ramp; NLEX-SLEX Connector Road; Radial Road 10; NAIAX Phase II; C-5 South Link Expressway; Mindanao Avenue Extension (Segment 2C); NLEX Harbor Link, Segment 8.2; Samar Street; Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3; Southeast Metro Manila Expressway, C-6 (Phase I); Fort Bonifacio-Nichols Road; and Laguna Lake Highway.<\/p>\n

Meantime, the bridge projects under the Edsa Decongestion Program are the Bonifacio Global City-Ortigas Center Link Road Project.; Binondo-Intramuros Bridge; Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge; Pasig River and Manggahan Floodway Bridges Construction Project (3 bridges); Marikina River Bridges Construction Project (3 bridges).<\/p>\n

\u2018Drastic, continued\u2019 improvement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Villar said the public can expect a \u201cdrastic\u201d and \u201ccontinued\u201d improvement in Edsa traffic, following the implementation of the Edsa Decongestion Program.<\/p>\n

He emphasized that by the second half of 2020, the heavy volume of traffic along the busiest highway in the country\u2019s metropolis will be reduced by \u201c20 percent to 30 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can we expect sa (when it comes to) Edsa congestion? By this year, by the second half of this year, we will relieve Edsa by 20 percent to 30 percent. Malaki po ang improvement sa Edsa (There will be a big improvement in Edsa). And for the first year starting this year and in subsequent years, we will see continued improvement along Edsa, as per committed by our President,\u201d Villar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see every year, magkakaroon ng improvement sa Edsa (there will be an improvement along Edsa), drastic improvement,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Villar said the Skyway Stage 3 will play a vital role in addressing the traffic congestion along Edsa.<\/p>\n

Skyway Stage 3 is an 18.30-kilometer elevated expressway from Buendia, Makati City to the North Luzon Expressway in Balintawak, Quezon City.<\/p>\n

Once the skyway is completed, the travel time from Buendia to Balintawak will be reduced from two hours to 15 to 20 minutes, Villar said.<\/p>\n

Villar said his office is targeting the opening of Skyway Stage 3 by April this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe capacity of Edsa is 280,000. The volume of traffic today is 400,000. Para ibalik natin sa dati, kailangan nating i-reduce ang traffic (To bring back to its original capacity, we have to reduce the traffic volume) by 120,000 cars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this project alone, ang expectation namin is almost 100,000 cars a day ang mawawala sa EDSA (we are expecting that almost 100,000 cars will be relieved from Edsa),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 10, Duterte ordered concerned state agencies to introduce innovations to ease traffic jams in Metro Manila.<\/p>\n

The Duterte government’s ambitious \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d infrastructure program is seen as a solution to address the crippling traffic congestion in the country\u2019s metropolis.<\/p>\n

Some PHP9 trillion has been earmarked for the implementation of around 100 big-ticket infrastructure projects and over 10,000 small infrastructure projects under the \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d program.<\/p>\n

Around 38 of the 100 flagship infrastructure projects are expected to be completed by the end of Duterte\u2019s term in 2022, while 22 are \u201cpartially operational or substantially completed\u201d and the remaining 40 would be finished \u201cbeyond 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The current administration will be able to deliver on its promise to decongest Edsa, the main and busiest thoroughfare …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":239487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,54365,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-instagram","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-ruth-abbey-gita-carlos","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242808,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242806\/revisions\/242808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}