Wednesday, August 13, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
An official of the Department of Public Works and Highways said they have started crafting the detailed design for the P420-million flyover project in Quezon City, which is one of the vital links in the 41-kilometer North Luzon Expressway-South Luzon Expressway (NLEX-SLEX) flagship project of the Arroyo administration.
Engineer Reynaldo Rosario, DPWH-National Capital Region assistant chief in planning, said that they have begun planning for the proposed construction of the flyover along circumferential road 5 (C5) along Commonwealth Avenue connecting Tandang Sora Avenue with Luzon Avenue in time to be finished by 2009.
“We are still doing the detailed design of the project and would only bid it out after the local government of Quezon City has cleared the road right of way. This infrastructure is one of the segments of the NLEX-SLEX, which is one of President Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address (SONA)-Luzon Urban Beltway Projects,” Rosario said.
It was earlier reported that Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has pledged P18 million for the acquisition of the RROW from residents and establishments.
He added, “It will be more than a 300-meter stretch flyover. The 18-meter width of the structure would also cover a center island and sidewalks on both sides. There would be two lanes for each of the northbound and southbound direction.”
On Aug. 6, the DPWH signed a memorandum of agreement with the Quezon City government wherein it was agreed that the local government would be in charge of clearing the RROW, part of the civil works and in the construction of the approaches. The department, on the other hand, would build the flyover proper.
“This flyover is one of the three remaining ‘missing link’ projects, that spans eight kms. of the total 41 km. NLEX-SLEX project. We are confident that we would complete all the segments of the infrastructure project by December 2009,” he said.
Apart from the flyover in Quezon City, two other ongoing projects are the Mindanao Avenue Extension project that would be done by the Manila North Tollways Corporation and in Congressional Road to be erected by the DPWH.
The engineer believes that once the entire infrastructure project has been completed it would improve the travel time from the NLEX to SLEX since apart from using EDSA, motorists could use another major thoroughfare, the C5.
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