Thursday, March 22, 2018

MRT-9 proposed; C-6 starts next month

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian firm Alloy MTD Group, through its Philippine unit, has formally submitted an unsolicited proposal to build the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) 9, a 9-kilometer railway connecting Lerma to University of the Philippines Diliman.

The cost of the project in 2016 was estimated at $1 billion(P50 billion), but this has escalated to P60 billion according to Patrick Nicholas David, president of MTD Philippines, Inc.

This train system would be known as the East-West rail and will use EspaƱa as alignment. It will have 11 stations.

David said the company is now waiting for the National Economic and Development Authority’s (NEDA) approval of the proposal to start the project.

MTD has tapped A Brown for this project.

David said the NEDA approval would pave the way for the grant of original proponent status on the project, which would then undergo a Swiss challenge.

He also said there was an earlier proposal from another group for the same alignment.

However, that project would be a bus rapid transit using the same at-grade road.

MTD had studied the idea of the MRT line 9 as early as 2014.

Meanwhile, SMC will start the constructions for the P45-billion Southeast Metro Manila Expressway or the C-6 expressway project by April 2018 according to Department of Transportation.

Last January, the groundbreaking ceremony for the first phase of C6 project was held, its slated to be completed in two years or by 2020.

Once completed, motorists and commuters can travel from Quezon City to Taguig in Just 35 minutes. It will connect to the existing Skyway Stage 1 in FTI, Taguig and would end in Batasan in Quezon City.

The SEMME is a 34 km six lane that starts in the south with a connection to the existing Skyway Stage 1 in FTI, Taguig City and terminates at Batasan Complex in Quezon City and eventually will connect to the NLEX via Balagtas.

The project seeks to address the need to provide an alternate route, linking the Southern and Eastern cities of Metro Manila, that will help in decongesting the traffic situation being currently experienced in these areas. —Irma Isip, Myla Iglesias

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