It’s a go for Japan-funded MRT3 rehab, says NEDA

The Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee has approved the rehabilitation of glitch-plagued Metro Rail Transit Line 3, to be funded by official development assistance (ODA) from Japan.

The P22.061-billion project was approved on Thursday, August 16, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said in a statement.

“This development just means that there is no stopping the rehabilitation of the entire MRT3 system,” Department of Transportation (DOTr) Director for Communication Goddess Libiran told GMA News Online on Friday.

The MRT3 rehab will start in the third quarter of 2018 and be completed in the first quarter of 2021, according to NEDA.

“We are expecting the loan agreement signing at the end of this month or early next month. Takeover of the Japanese maintenance contractor shall commence after that,” Libiran said.

Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. and its technical partner, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will start the rehabilitation and maintenance works on MRT3 in August, the DOTr said on July 17.

The Sumitomo-Mitsubishi team is expected to come on board soon after the Philippines and Japan have signed the ODA.

“The project, executed by the Department of Transportation, is part of the agency’s strategy for restoring, upgrading, and regularly maintaining the MRT3 over the long- term,” NEDA said.

The rehabilitation works would increase the number of operating trainsets from 15 to 18 per hour, increase the maximum train speed to 60 kilometers per hour, and shorten the headway to 200 seconds.

The trains, power supply system, radio system, CCTV system, public address system, and signaling system, are covered by the rehabilitation agreement, NEDA said.

“With the upcoming rehabilitation of the MRT 3, we expect improvements in service efficiency and security of the existing train line,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said.

“Over the long-term, we envision the MRT to be a very convenient and efficient mode of transportation that will encourage car owners to shift to public transportation, thereby reducing traffic congestion in Metro Manila,” the Cabinet official noted.

In December 2017, the Philippines and Japan exchanged several notes verbale on a government-to-government agreement for a Japanese service provider to take over the maintenance and rehabilitation of MRT3.

The overall rehabilitation is expected to take 43 months—31 months for simultaneous rehabilitation and maintenance works and 12 months for the liability against defects on the part of the contractor. —VDS, GMA News

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/money/companies/664529/it-s-a-go-for-japan-funded-mrt3-rehab-says-neda/story/

NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10 slated for completion by yearend

NlEX Corp. Is working double time to complete the construction of the P10.5 billion North Luzon Expressway Harbor Link Segment 10 by end of the year.

“We’re confident that our government partners will help us realize soon our vision of providing fast and safe travel experience to the public through this project,” said Raul Ignacio, SVP for Tollway Development and Engineering.

NLEX Harbor Link Segment 10 is an 8.25-kilometer elevated expressway traversing NLEX from Karuhatan, Valenzuela City, passing through Malabon City and Caloocan City. It will extend to Radial Road 10, Navotas City.

Once opened, travel time from the Manila Port to NLEX will take about 10 minutes, making it possible for cargo trucks to improve their turnaround time for delivery of goods.

http://bilyonaryo.com.ph/2018/08/16/nlex-harbor-link-segment-10-slated-for-completion-by-yearend/

Decongesting EDSA

Today the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority will continue to implement the driver-only or high-occupancy vehicle traffic scheme along EDSA, which is on a dry run until Aug. 22. Malacañang is urging the public to give the HOV a chance.

The MMDA said it respected the Senate, which passed a resolution last Wednesday against the HOV scheme. At least one Metro Manila mayor also said the HOV would not be implemented in his city.

With lawmakers pointing out that the scheme merely moves traffic jams to other parts of the mega city, however, it looks like the HOV is going to be short-lived. MMDA officials said they continued to seek other ways of easing traffic on the busiest thoroughfare in Metro Manila.



What else can be done? Several long-term answers have been proposed, with some of them being gradually implemented.

One, already discussed extensively, is a major upgrade of the mass transportation system to entice motorists to leave their cars at home. The measure of an advanced economy and progressive society is when even the wealthy and top public officials take mass transportation regularly.


Another is to move government offices and universities outside Metro Manila or to create more branches or satellite offices outside the mega city. This is ongoing but will also take several years.

Still another proposal is to modernize the railway services for both commuters and cargo to reduce the number of trucks that jam the roads leading to the Port of Manila. Hand in hand with this is the expansion of services and capacities at the Batangas and Subic container ports to decongest the Manila port.

For immediate measures, however, simply enforcing traffic rules effectively can work wonders.

*      *      *

On Friday afternoon last week, for example, traffic was slow on the westbound lane near the intersection of Taft and Gil Puyat avenues.

The reason? Buses mostly of the DLTB and LLI lines had turned one lane beside the portable orange traffic barricades on the street into their terminal. Through several changes of the traffic light at the junction, the buses idled there, waiting for passengers.

Nearby, a man wearing the uniform of a Pasay traffic enforcer stood behind a pillar of the Light Rail Transit, oblivious to the mess. Either he was paid to ignore the buses, or else he was too clueless to understand that his job was to keep traffic moving smoothly.

On the same day, at the corner of Taft and Vito Cruz where a public works project is creating massive traffic gridlocks, there was not a single traffic enforcer in sight during the evening rush hour.

Such scenes are depressingly common all over the traffic-choked streets of Metro Manila. At night when MMDA traffic enforcers are no longer on duty, buses take over the southbound lane of Roxas Boulevard in front of the Redemptorist church in Baclaran, leaving only one lane for moving vehicles. The same thing happens on the road leading to the NAIA from Macapagal Boulevard, where the former Uniwide shopping complex is supposed to serve as the bus terminal.

On EDSA, the drive from the Magallanes interchange to the Ayala Avenue-McKinley Road junction can take half an hour or more. Among the causes are the buses that occupy several lanes of the road, taking their sweet time picking up passengers before they cross the intersection.

*      *      *

At least three proposals have been put forward to deal with this problem. One is the gradual phase-out of the buses in favor of double-deckers, with the number of units strictly regulated. The problem is that the tall buses might hit low-lying power lines.

A second proposal is the installation of machines at designated street stops by the government and on buses by the operators. Bus doors will open only within range of the street devices, and close within a specific period. No more lingering too long or stopping anywhere to unload or pick up passengers. Under tough-talking President Duterte, this could be possible.

The biggest hurdle will be the bus operators, who want their vehicles so packed per trip that their drivers’ daily earnings depend on the number of passengers picked up. Thanks to this quota system, which is also used by jeepney operators, drivers wait forever at various points and stop even in the middle of the street to pick up passengers.

Some of the biggest transport operators belong to political clans or are well connected, and have stubbornly resisted efforts to put an end to the quota system.

Aggravating this problem is the ongoing construction of infrastructure projects in several parts of Metro Manila, around which a tiny stretch of rutted or uneven pavement can force motorists to slow down, creating traffic snarls.

This is the situation along Pioneer street in Mandaluyong, where traffic slows to a crawl along the eastbound lane because of one unpaved stretch about a meter wide. How hard is it to make this stretch smoother while public works construction is under way?

*      *      *

Thinking that there are still many other things that can be done, single-car owners who drive their own vehicles are understandably up in arms against the revival of the ban on driver-only cars during rush hour along EDSA.

Some motorists may be fashioning dummies that can be propped up as passengers in the back seat. This was what some people did when traffic managers first implemented the HOV some years ago to encourage carpooling. With most private cars tinted to keep out the sun, who could tell the difference? Many private cars, especially those owned by the rich and powerful as well as felons, are so heavily tinted it’s impossible to see anyone inside.

No one will argue with the need to ease traffic gridlocks in Metro Manila, especially on EDSA. The average motorist, ready to try anything, will cooperate initially with any scheme to untangle the traffic mess.

Along with these schemes, however, authorities must not overlook basic traffic enforcement and sensible ways of keeping traffic flowing.


Read more at https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2018/08/17/1843233/decongesting-edsa#It2Dt2Xg1eMT62DB.99

NEDA clears P22-billion Japan ODA for MRT-3 rehabilitation

The use of official development assistance (ODA) to fund the rehabilitation of the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 was approved yesterday by the Investment Coordination Committee - Cabinet Committee (ICC-CabCom) of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and NEDA chief Ernesto Pernia said the use of ODA worth ¥38.1 billion – or an estimated P22 billion – for the ailing rapid transport system was among the projects approved during yesterday’s ICC-CabCom meeting. NEDA has yet to release the full list of projects cleared.

JICA senior representative Tetsuya Yamada confirmed the MRT 3 rehabilitation project was included in the agenda for yesterday’s ICC-CabCom meeting.

The MRT-3 Rehabilitation Project was among the big-ticket projects discussed by high-level Philippine and Japanese officials during the fifth meeting of the Philippines-Japan Joint Committee on Infrastructure Development and Economic Cooperations in Tokyo last June.

During the meeting, Japanese officials committed to provide ¥38.1 billion ODA loans for MRT-3 rehabilitation and ¥4.37 billion for the second phase of the New Bohol Airport Construction and Sustainable Environmental Protection Project.

As of June, the terms offered by the Japanese government for both projects were for a repayment period of 28 years after a grace period of 12 years at interest of 0.1 percent per annum.

Aside from these projects, the Department of Finance has said least four other candidate projects were identified by the committee in June for possible funding. These were: Philippine National Railways (PNR) North 2 Project, which would run from Malolos in Bulacan to Clark in Pampanga; PNR South Commuter Line, which would extend from Tutuban in Manila to Los Banos in Laguna; Pasig-Marikina River Channel Improvement Project, which aims to mitigate flooding in Metro Manila; and the Road Network Development Project in Conflict-Affected Areas in Mindanao.

Based on the discussions between the Department of Transportation (DOTr) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) last May, the rehabilitation of maintenance project for MRT-3 would take 43 months.

This is broken down into 31 months for the simultaneous rehabilitation and maintenance works to restore MRT-3 to its original design and capacity, and 12 months for the defect liability period.

The project would cover MRT-3’s trains, power supply system, overhead catenary system, radio system, CCTV system, PABX public address system, signaling system, rail tracks, road rail vehicles, depot equipment, elevators and escalators and other station building equipment.

The use of Japanese ODA for the project would still have to hurdle approval by the NEDA Board chaired by President Duterte. Only then can JICA and the Philippine government commence with the exchange of notes and the eventual signing of the loan agreement.

https://www.philstar.com/business/2018/08/17/1843175/neda-clears-p22-billion-japan-oda-mrt-3-rehabilitation