Bridge-tunnel project pushed to solve Metro Manila traffic woes

“If they can connect countries or continents why we can’t we even connect two provinces?,”

ORANI, Bataan – “My simple message during the CLTV 36’s ‘So to Speak’ program: there is only one arterial road that connects Southern Luzon to Central and Northern Luzon, and that is EDSA. So, why not provide an alternative route in Manila Bay via Cavite-Corregidor-Bataan, a bridge-tunnel, like what they did in Tokyo Bay (Japan).”

So goes former Bataan first district representative Felicito “Tong” Payumo, during an interview with this reporter at the Sinagtala Resort last Tuesday.

“At present there are already 2.5 million motor vehicles in Metro Manila, and if you add 30% more passing through traffic from Southern Luzon to Central/Northern Luzon and vice versa, then you know why there is a daily traffic gridlock in Metro Manila!,” Payumo stressed.

He added that bridges can span the shorter distances from Mariveles to Corregidor and the small isles but a tunnel can be bored under the southern channel to Cavite where ships pass.

Payumo further reiterated that this completes the Manila Bay loop together with the component segments of Roman Highway, Subic Clark Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx), North Luzon Expressway, Skyway Connector, South Luzon Expressway and the Cavite Expressway (CAVITEx).

Payumo was one of the brains behind the then “ambitious” SCTEX project.

“(This will be) our first Ring, while Tokyo and other US cities have a more efficient traffic system of rings and radials,” he said.

The former Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) chairman also said that he sees no reason why it cannot be afforded by the government thru public private partnerships and other investment options.

Payumo, who was also the chairman and administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, said the traffic mess in Metro Manila was already costing us 3 billion pesos a day according to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

“But this was some years ago, maybe closer to P4B a day now! While the cost of tunneling, a no rocket technology, has gone down with the number of idle tunneling machines, or fabricate binocular pipes on land and sit them on the sea bed trench, like what they did for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in San Francisco and Oakland,” he added.

The project will not only declog the EDSA traffic but will make travel between Batangas/Cavite and Bataan/Central Luzon faster and predictable, he said.

“A predictable one hour travel between Cavite and Clark, Pampanga, it will also push development of Ecozones for both export and domestic industries outside of Metro Manila as President Rody Duterte wants,” Payumo explained

Payumo also cited other countries’ efforts doing this bridge-tunnels like the English Tunnel connecting England and France, in Scandinavia, the Bosphorus connecting Europe and Asia, Korea, Hongkong-Kowloon and Hongkong-Macau.

“If they can connect countries or continents why we can’t we even connect two provinces?,” Payumo concluded.