Edsa’s pedestrian skyways suffer delays

Construction of the Edsa Greenways—a 5-kilometer (km) covered elevated walkway that would traverse Metro Manila’s busiest thoroughfare—is encountering some delays as the Department of Transportation (DOTr) has yet to find a contractor to build the project.

The pedestrian project was supposed to start in June this year, with the target of completion by February 2027.

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Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John Batan, in an interview with the Inquirer, said they were still in the procurement process for the walkway’s civil works.

“We had to optimize the design to make sure that it’s cost-efficient,” he said. “That took time.”

Batan said they were eyeing to award the civil works contract by the second half of next year so construction would start before the end of 2025.

Funded by ADB

The DOTr official said the project, which is being funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), would cost P8 billion.

The mass transit walkway will be situated along Edsa in the vicinity of Balintawak, Cubao, Guadalupe and Taft.

The idea is to build a better pedestrian access to and from selected railway stations of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1, LRT 2 and Metro Rail Transit Line 3 along Edsa. Elevators will also be installed on the elevated walkway.

This project is in line with the DOTr’s active transport program, which also highlights the need to set up separate bike lanes for cyclists.

Next year, the DOTr is eyeing to build at least an additional 260 km of dedicated bike lanes. The country has about 812 km of cycleways so far and wants to establish 2,400 km by 2028.

The government agency and city government of Marikina inaugurated in August an 8-km bike lane and two end-of-trip facilities that have bike racks, shower rooms, restrooms and lockers.

In March, the DOTr also launched in Manila 9.6 km of bike lanes in Intramuros, in partnership with the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority and the Intramuros Administration.

A 2022 survey by the Social Weather Stations notes that one in four Filipino households owns a bike and about 30 percent of them have at least one household member biking for essential or leisure purposes. INQ