Ayala, SM offer to put up P25-B elevated expressway

Jose Rene Almendras

Conglomerates SM Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp. joined forces to combat Metro Manila’s traffic woes, proposing to build what has been called the “missing link,” an elevated toll road that would shift traffic away from Edsa.

The two groups, which have cooperated in previous projects, submitted their first unsolicited proposal to the Duterte administration, revealing on Friday a P25-billion, 8.6-kilometer elevated expressway that would link Sta. Mesa, Manila to SM-controlled Mall of Asia complex in Pasay City.

Along the way, the toll road, dubbed the C-3 elevated Expressway or C3Ex, would have interchanges in Circuit Makati, Ayala-Gil Puyat and Roxas Boulevard.

Jose Rene Almendras, CEO of Ayala unit AC Infrastructure Holdings, told reporters in a briefing the proposal had been submitted to the Department on Public Works and Highways.

He said the plan was for the government to hold a competitive challenge, with an award seen by the second quarter of 2018. C3Ex can be finished in three years. It can handle some 100,000 vehicles per day.

With the completion of other toll road projects, such as San Miguel Corp.’s Skyway stage 3 in 2018, motorists would see significant benefits, he said. Traveling from Quezon City to Makati would take only 15 minutes from over one hour today, while those moving from Pasay to Makati will be able to bypass Edsa.

“I think the traffic problem in Manila has reached that level in which there is no color or citizenship issue anymore,” Almendras said, referring to the decision by both groups, led by Ayala’s Zobel family and the SM Group’s Sy family, to come together.

Almendras admitted the C3Ex would benefit their own property developments, a significant earnings provider for their respective conglomerates.

As such, a key part of the proposal involved the consortium reimbursing government for right-of-way expenses, typically shouldered by taxpayers. Almendras said this would cost the consortium an additional “few billions of pesos.”

He said other groups would be invited into the C3Ex consortium, adding they have already approached SMC.