Cebu City—The province of Cebu concluded 2019 with a bullish investment program on infrastructure development aimed at addressing traffic congestion and flooding.
“In the pipeline are the big-ticket projects which the Duterte administration is determined to finance to boost socioeconomic development in Central Visayas and to ease our burden due to traffic problem,” said Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino.
He enumerated the seven big-ticket projects that include infrastructure developments meant to address traffic congestion in Metro Cebu.
The 73.75-kilometer Metro Cebu Expressway that will span from Naga City in the south to Danao City in the north is a long high standard arterial road to meet existing and future traffic demands, he said.
Traversing mountain slopes of the province, this P28.1-billion expressway is expected to serve as another north-south backbone highway aimed to provide seamless traffic flow from Naga City to Danao City.
Next to the expressway is the Talisay-Minglanilla-Naga and Mandaue-Consolacion-Liloan bypass roads worth P200 million each.
The two bypass roads that are also seen to unclog main thoroughfares in Metro Cebu are on the list of the proposed priority programs, activities, and projects of the regional Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-7) for fiscal year 2020.
Apart from these two bypass roads, the Guadalupe-Lahug Diversion Road is also among the infrastructure projects of DPWH-7 that will ease the traffic flow around the uptown district of this city.
Edgar Tabacon, DPWH-7 regional director, said the detailed engineering design for the P40-million diversion road project is part of the list of projects included in the 2020 budget proposal of the DPWH central office.
The General Appropriations Act of 2019 allocated P90 million for the detailed engineering design of the Metro Cebu Flood Control and Drainage Master Plan, he said.
The provincial government of Cebu, through a resolution sponsored by Provincial Board Member Glenn Anthony Soco, encouraged local government units in the metro to align their respective drainage and anti-flood projects to the master plan.
The Fourth Mandaue-Mactan link bridge with a segment for the Mandaue Coastal Road is also a high impact project to be funded through the Official Development Assistance from the Japanese government.
Dino said the New Cebu International Container Port at the Cebu South Coastal Road in Talisay City which is now under construction is likewise expected to decongest both the container yard in the existing Cebu International Port and the traffic congestion along the service road that runs parallel with the S. Osmeña Street leading to a big mall at the North Reclamation Area and Mandaue Reclamation Area. PNA
For his part, Tabacon said the DPWH-7 is already conducting parcellary survey and appraisal of properties affected in the projects that they will implement in 2020.
“We will already prepare the offer to pay the owner of the properties.
Those who refused, we prepared expropriation case to be filed in court upon approval of the 2020 budget,” he said.
While he admitted that right of way acquisition was the challenge that fell on DPWH-7 even before 2019, Tabacon said they are exerting efforts to address this issue on infrastructure development “for the betterment of the greater populace.”