President Aquino cites traffic woes during SONA, vows to develop infrastructure

In his State of the Nation Address, President Aquino laid out some plans to improve the country’s traffic situation and travel speed. Airports, train systems, and roads will all receive upgrades and attention. Aquino acknowledged that the economy loses 2.4 billion pesos every day due to Metro Manila traffic. To address this, provincial buses will be forced to use the Integrated Transport System, with terminals in Paranaque, and additional ones in Quezon City and Muntinlupa “already lined up,” instead of entering Metro Manila.

Two connector roads joining the North and South Luzon Expressways, bypassing EDSA, was conceived in the 1970s, and supposedly bogged down because of Marcos cronyism. The road, a fourteen-kilometer, six-lane elevated tollway extending from Balintawak to Buendia in Makati, will be built. Also in the plans are an eight-kilometer, four-lane expressway connecting C3 road to Calocan, crossing España, up to PUP in Sta. Mesa. The alignment of these two roads is a five-and-a-half kilometer six-lane elevated expressway from PUP in Sta. Mesa, crossing Osmeña and Quirino Avenue, to Buendia in Makati. The road will cut travel time from two hours from SLEX to NLEX to fifteen minutes. The three-hour drive from Clark to Calamba will supposedly be reduced to an hour and forty minutes. 55,000 motorists daily will benefit from the project.

Aquino said that an extension of the Light Rail Transit 1 to Cavite started last month.

“Hindi lang kalsada, kundi pati sistema, isinasaayos sa DPWH,” said Aquino.