Expressway to Tagaytay

Infrastructure giant Metro Pacific Investments Corp. is proposing to build a new expressway that will connect Metro Manila to Tagaytay City in Cavite.

According to the Department of Public Works and Highways, Metro Pacific unit MPCALA Holdings Inc. will submit an unsolicited proposal for what it dubbed the Cavite-Tagaytay-Batangas Expressway.

If approved by the government, the project will provide a fresh route for motorists traveling through southern Metro Manila. Moreover, it will significantly extend Metro Pacific’s presence south of the capital district. The company’s main tollroad assets are located further north, via the North Luzon Expressway and the Subic Clark Tarlac Expressway.

The DPWH said the Cavite-Tagaytay-Batagas Expressway would span more than 46 kilometers and link Metro Pacific’s existing Cavite Expressway (Cavitex) and the Cavite Laguna Expressway (Calax), which has yet to start construction, to Tagaytay.

The link starts in Silang, Cavite, and will end in Nasugbu, Batangas.

Road congestion in this area has been growing and the project aims to address this issue, Cavitex Infrastructure president Luigi Bautista said. The company hopes to formally submit the proposal by the end of June this year, he added.

“We think in five years, this project is going to become critical,” Bautista said yesterday.

He said they planned to build the project in stages, with the Silang-Tagaytay segment to be completed in three years. The estimated project cost was pegged at P22 billion to P25 billion.

Metro Pacific, through Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., operates the 14-km Cavitex, which links Metro Manila to Kawit, Cavite.

In turn, the 44.6-km Calax, a Public Private Partnership (PPP) project that Metro Pacific bagged in 2015, starts in Kawit and will end in the South Luzon Expressway-Mamplasan interchange in Biñan, Laguna.