Private group offers to build subway along Edsa
A group led by businessman Delfin Wenceslao has offered to build a subway system under Edsa, Metro Manila’s busiest thoroughfare.
Wenceslao, chair of D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc., said the project would have at least four stations and link the Trinoma shopping mall in Quezon City and the Mall of Asia complex in Pasay.
“The mess is in Edsa so we submitted a [project] for Edsa,” Wenceslao said. He added that the project was submitted to the National Economic and Development Authority.
Unsolicited projects, however, are typically submitted first to the implementing agency, which is the Department of Transportation in this case.
Wenceslao added that the project would not come into conflict with the alignment of another subway project being pursued by the DOTr.
Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade earlier said that work on the country’s first subway project, which will run from Quezon City to Taguig, would start by the end of 2018.
The subway project, backed by the Japanese government, will cost around P350 billion. Its primary funding will come from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
The subway’s proposed stations will be located on Mindanao Avenue, Tandang Sora, North Avenue, Quezon Avenue, East Avenue, Anonas, Kaptipunan, Ortigas North, Ortigas South, Kalayaan Avenue, Bonifacio Globe City, Cayetano Boulevard and the Food Terminal Inc. complex.
The DOTr is also pushing for a connection to Manila’s Ninoy Aquion International Airport.
Full completion is seen in 2025. However, Tugade said it was possible for the first three stations to be in operation by 2022, or the end of President Duterte’s term.
The DOTr earlier said it was targeting to complete some 320 kilometers of railway projects by 2022—more than four times the current footprint—in Luzon and Mindanao.
The projects include the Philippine National Railways’ project to the Clark Freeport Zone (106 km), the PNR Manila to Los Baños, Laguna (72 km), the Mindanao Railway Project’s Tagum-Davao-Digos phase (102 km), and the Light Rail Transit Line 2 extension.
Other projects are the LRT 1 extension to Cavite (11.7 km), being built by private concessionaire Light Rail Manila Corp. and the Metro Rail Transit Line 7 to Bulacan, being built by San Miguel Corp.
The Philippines currently has a railway footprint of 77 km through the LRT 1, LRT 2, MRT 3 and the PNR.
