San Miguel Corp. on Wednesday broke ground on the P69.3-billion mass rail transit system from Quezon City to Bulacan province, eight years after the original proposal was presented to the government.
“We are ready to start the construction of MRT 7,” San Miguel president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said during the groundbreaking ceremony at the Quezon City Memorial Circle.
MRT 7, a 23-kilometer elevated railway from North Avenue, Quezon City to San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, is expected to be completed three or four years from now, he said.
The project, which will have 14 stations, will be implemented by newly-formed SMC Mass Rail Transit 7 Inc. under SMC’s infrastructure subsidiary San Miguel Holdings Inc.
Ang said once the MRT-7 was built, it would take only 30 minutes to commute from North Ave. to San Jose del Monte, compared to the current two-hour travel time.
“MRT 7 will connect to MRT 3 and [will have] a provision to connect to LRT Line 1,” Ang said.
He said the project also has a road component, a 23-kilometer stretch that would start at the Balagtas Interchange of North Luzon Expressway and end in an intermodal terminal in San Jose Del Monte. This will provide provincial buses with an alternate route to San Jose and will help decongest EDSA.
“The long-awaited MRT-7 will serve commuters who ply the heavily congested Commonwealth Avenue area for work and school on a daily basis. The new railway system will not only significantly lessen travel time along this corridor, but also help decongest traffic in Caloocan and NLEx,” Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said.
Construction of MRT 7 was delayed for eight years, because of the proponents’ failure to secure a performance undertaking from the Finance Department.
A performance undertaking represents a recognition of the obligation of the Philippine government through the Transportation Department under the concession agreement, particularly the remittance of semi-annual amortization in favor of the Universal LRT Corp., the original proponent of the project that is now controlled by San Miguel.
The Transportation Department and ULC signed the contract to build the railway in 2008. San Miguel though San Miguel Holdings is now a majority-owner of ULC.
San Miguel Holdings executed a share sale and purchase agreement in October 2010 to acquire 51 percent of ULC from the group of Salvador Zamora II.
San Miguel tapped Hyundai Rotem and EEI consortium to build the railway line composed of 14 stations at North Ave., Quezon Memorial Circle, University Avenue, Tandang Sora, Don Antonio, Batasan, Manggahan, Doña Carmen, Regalado, Mindanao Avenue, Quirino, Sacred Heart, Tala and San Jose del Monte.
San Miguel will also build a depot in San Jose del Monte that will house a control center, administrative offices, warehouse and facilities for train cars.