BCDA backs tollway firm’s connector road bid

FAVORED PROJECT The Bases Conversion and Development Authority recommends Metro Pacific Tollways Corp.’s unsolicited proposal to build a 13-kilometer elevated road connecting the North and South Luzon Expressways.

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority has urged the Aquino administration to accept Metro Pacific Tollways Corp.’s unsolicited proposal to build a 13-kilometer elevated road that will connect the North and South Luzon Expressways.

BCDA Chairman Felicito Payumo said the unsolicited offer, which was submitted last year, complied with the provisions of the build-operate-transfer law.

The implementation of the connector road project at the soonest possible time, he said, was crucial to the country’s tourism development as this could decongest traffic at the already crowded Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1.

“What could be more important, strategic and game-changing than decongesting the NAIA through a link-up with [the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport] at Clark, while helping solve the horrendous traffic problem of Greater Manila,” he said in a statement issued Monday.

Under the MPTC proposal, the 13-kilometer elevated highway would be built in alignment with the Philippine National Railways’ tracks, starting at the North Harbor and ending at the Skyway’s northern end on Gil Puyat Ave. (formerly Buendia) in Makati City.

The elevated road would also be connected to Manila North Tollways Corp.’s P10-billion, 11-kilometer harbor-link road project at the NLEx-Mindanao Ave. junction.

The NLEx-SLEx connector road project would cost around P20 billion, which would be shouldered entirely by MPTC under a BOT arrangement. The bid was submitted to the Department of Public Works and Highways last year and was now on the competitive challenge stage, Payumo said.

He said MPTC’s proposal was “strategic,” considering that it would provide a fast connection between NAIA and DMIA and at the same time connect four key economic corridors—Southern Luzon, Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Northern Luzon—to one another.

With the connector road in place, he said the SLEx would be seamlessly connected not only with the NLEx but also with the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway and the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway.

“[This] will make travel from Manila to Baguio an easy three hours, reduce driving time between NAIA and DMIA—a distance of 100 kilometers—a mere 70 minutes instead of two or even three hours, and make the construction of a budget carrier terminal in DMIA viable while the express train project is awaited,” he said.

In an earlier interview, BCDA president and chief executive Arnel Paciano Casanova said the BCDA was in talks with the Department of Transportation and Communications on the implementation of the railway project.