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Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Urban Ring Road’ in the works

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A network of urban expressways to link up the west, east, north, and south sides of the entire Metro Manila area through interconnected tollways which will comprise a “ring around the metropolis” for seamless urban travel.

That’s the brainchild of Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation which has started suiting the action to what it calls a powerful idea whose time has come.

“That’s why we call it the ‘MPTC Urban Ring Road,’ which is designed to improve circulation and assure unimpeded traffic flow,” said Rodrigo E. Franco, MPTC President and CEO.

The MPTC Urban Ring Road solves city traffic by providing high-speed, high-standard seamless network of expressways within and around Metro Manila. It will decongest local roads and strengthen the road network configuration by separating local in-city trips from inter-city to inter-regional travel.

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The key strategy is to “by-pass the heart of every city,” Franco explained, citing the interesting analogy of the “circulatory system” — composed of the heart, arterial roads that by-pass the heart, the seamless flow that brings vitality to city life – and the overall improvement of circulation around the metropolis.

Composed of MPTC’s C-5 Expressway, C-5 South Link, and the NLEX – CAVITEX Port Link Expressway, the Ring Road toll roads lead motorists to avoid the congested traffic of CP Garcia Avenue/Katipunan Avenue to South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) via existing C-5 Road, EDSA North and Quezon Avenue.

These traverse Manila and Quezon City, and by-pass heavy traffic on EDSA South, Baclaran and Taft Avenue that cover the cities of Makati, Paranaque, Pasay, and the southside of Manila.

After the NLEX extensions Segment 8.1 and 8.2 past Mindanao Avenue, the motoring public will soon be able to use the C-5 Expressway, a 19.4km 62.7-billion project that will connect Quezon City to Taguig. The usual two-hour travel time from NLEX to SLEX via the existing C-5 Road will be reduced to only 15 minutes.

Linking up with the C-5 Expressway is the CAVITEX C-5 South Link, a seven-kilometer tollway. It will serve as an alternative route from C-5 Road going to Roxas Boulevard and the CAVITEX Zapote Interchange, other than the NAIA Expressway, East and West Service Roads, and Sucat Road.

Travel time from C-5 Road near Libingan ng mga Bayani to CAVITEX Zapote Interchange will be reduced from an average of one hour to only 10 minutes.

As C-5 South Link connects to CAVITEX, the NLEX–CAVITEX Port Link Expressway Segment 1 will continue the loop and provide relief to motorists without negotiating such congested national and local roads as Roxas Boulevard and Macapagal Boulevard.

The NLEX–CAVITEX Port Link Expressway Segment 1 will start at Pacific Avenue in Paranaque and will end up at Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City. It will traverse Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard and will also connect seamlessly to other existing high speed expressways like Cavite-Laguna Expressway (CALAX), NAIA Expressway (NAIAX) and SLEX.

Overall, Franco said, the MPTC Urban Ring Road is “designed to put order in urban transport.”

“It’s really a case of good traffic management not matching the rapid growth of urbanization,” he said. “The economic losses of city traffic are enormous. We’d like to help manage it, and the MPTC Urban Ring Road is our contribution,” he added.

“I’d like to say it is a powerful idea whose time has come in the Philippines,” Franco said.

Completing the MPTC Urban Ring Road is Segment 1 of the NLEX–CAVITEX Port Link Expressway, which will be called NLEX Harbor Link–Port Area Section. More than five kilometers long, the elevated NLEX Harbor Link–Port Area Section will run alongside the Manila Bay, to Anda Circle in the Port Area, then to R-10 Road and all the way up to NLEX via the NLEX Harbor Link.

It will create a round-the-clock unimpeded transportation of goods within and through Metro Manila for a faster and more efficient movement of people and goods without having to negotiate the now congested national and local roads of Metro Manila.

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