San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has submitted all the requirements to fasttrack the approval of its $3-billion unsolicited proposal to build an elevated expressway on EDSA.
Ramon Ang, SMC president and chief operating officer, said SMC has completed the submission of all the requirements, including the financial studies, to the Department of Transportation (DOTr).
This is in the hope the project will be finished in two years or before the end of the Duterte administration.
“If we convince them to approve it, we will start building it… let’s say middle of 2020… we will finish two years after.” Ang said in a recent interview.
The project aims to address the worsening traffic condition on EDSA and other key cities in Metro Manila.
The proposed expressway will be an all-steel highway with five lanes in each direction stretching from Macapagal avenue in Pasay to Samson road in Caloocan or Balintawak,
Quezon City.
Toll rate on the elevated expressway is estimated at between P150 and P200.
The project will have a dedicated lane for a bus rapid transport system (BRT) that would accommodate over a million passengers.
SMC also plans to connect the elevated expressway to Skyway Stage 3 whose main alignment is set for substantial completion this year.
By the end of this year, the Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3, an 18.68-kilometer elevated expressway stretched over Metro Manila from Buendia, Makati City to Balintawak, Quezon City, will be completed.
SMC also operates the 89.31-kilometer Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEX) which is set to start full operation soon.
Currently, SMC has two unsolicited proposals pending for approval by the Department of Public Works and Highway, the TPLEX extension up to San Juan, La Union and the Boracay bridge project.
