Three Northern expressways to be interconnected

Traffic crawled to the Dau toll plaza along the North Luzon Expressway in Mabalacat City, Pampanga province, on Dec. 26, part of a long holiday weekend. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Three expressways linking Metro Manila to four regions will be interconnected to avoid traffic jams that motorists endured for up to 12 hours during the Christmas holidays, said an official of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA).

Arnel Paciano Casanova, BCDA president and chief executive officer, disclosed the plan to link the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) and Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx) in the wake of the public uproar over worsening vehicular traffic and an investigation planned by Senate President Franklin Drilon.

Drilon said it took him 11 and a half hours to travel from Metro Manila to Baguio City on Dec. 26. Normal travel time from Metro Manila to Baguio had been shortened to at least four and a half hours, with the opening of the TPLEx exit in Barangay (village) Anonas in Urdaneta City in Pangasinan province.

Casanova, in a telephone interview on Monday, said the plan to interconnect the three expressways was approved by the BCDA board in November.

The state-owned BCDA owns the 93.77-kilometer, four-lane SCTEx that was built on Japanese loans and opened in April 2008. For the SCTEx, it has a business and operating agreement since 2011 with Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC), which also runs the NLEx.

The TPLEx began as a project by a private consortium. San Miguel Corp. is now its majority owner.

Fewer toll plazas

Interconnecting the three expressways, Casanova said, would reduce the number of toll plazas and make the flow of traffic along these sections faster.

These lead to and from Baguio City, as well as to and from provinces in Cagayan Valley, Ilocos, Cordillera and Central Luzon.

The Dau toll plaza of the NLEx in Pampanga province leads to the Mabalacat toll plaza of the SCTEx where a right turn heads to Tarlac province up to La Paz town, where the TPLEx begins.

Asked why the plan was not implemented before Christmas, Casanova said: “We still need to build the new toll plazas and remove the existing ones.” Civil works take time, he said.

New record high

Casanova said the SCTEx alone recorded 57,000 vehicles on Dec. 26, describing this to be a “new record high.”

Vehicle volume on the NLEx, SCTEx and TPLEx rose by between 25 percent and 35 percent from Dec. 20 to 26, he said. This was double the forecast that Tollways Management Corp. (TMC), which handles traffic management on NLEx, made for the expressway from Dec. 13 to Jan. 5.

TMC said an average of 160,000 vehicles use the NLEx every day.

It expects heavy traffic at the Bocaue toll plaza in Bulacan province as motorists head back to Metro Manila, placing the number of southbound vehicles daily from Dec. 31 to Jan. 4 at 52,000, or 30 percent higher from last year and up to 50 percent more than the normal average.

TMC plans to open spare lanes at Dau and Bocaue toll plazas to ease vehicle flow. All road works on the NLEx and SCTEx would continue to be suspended until Jan. 5.

INC event on Dec. 31

Motorists have been warned of heavy traffic along the NLEx section near the Philippine Arena on Dec. 31 as the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) holds an event there.

More policemen and traffic enforcers will be deployed along the Manila North Road (MNR), which traverses Pangasinan and La Union starting Dec. 30, in preparation for the expected influx of motorists for the New Year holidays to Baguio City and Ilocos provinces, a police official said.

“This is to avoid traffic jams. We do not want a repeat of what happened on Friday and Saturday,” said Senior Supt. Marlou Chan, chief of staff of the Ilocos regional police office.

Chan was referring to the traffic jams along the MNR from the town of Binalonan in Pangasinan up to Rosario town in neighboring La Union on Friday that took hours for motorists from Metro Manila to reach Baguio.

Drilon said he would seek a Senate inquiry into the “inefficiencies” of the toll collection system at the expressways, which exacerbated the traffic situation.

Choke point

Chan, who supervised traffic management in Rosario on Saturday night, said the choke point along the MNR was the Kennon Road-Rosario junction, where Baguio-bound vehicles and those heading for the northern Ilocos provinces separate.

Adding to the traffic buildup was the toll gate on Kennon Road that could only accommodate one vehicle at a time, he said.

Many northbound vehicles had also encroached on the southbound lane, putting traffic to a standstill from Sison, Pangasinan, to Rosario, La Union.

“We will make sure there will be more policemen in the area, complete with reflectorized vests and flashlights,” Chan said.

Tony Reyes, TPLEx marketing head, said more ambulant tellers would be deployed at the tollway booth in Barangay Carmen in Rosales town, where a long queue of vehicles was observed last weekend.

“There were simply too many vehicles going north at that time,” he said.

Reyes said vehicle volume on TPLEx on ordinary days was only between 6,000 and 7,000. But on Friday, he said, the volume was about 20,000.

“We only expected about a 20- to 30-percent increase in traffic volume. But that time, the number was tripled,” he said.  “What made it worse was that all those vehicles traveled almost at the same time.”

Reyes said Drilon’s proposal for an integrated toll collection system was a “welcome note.”

“In fact, we are now working it out in the south, with the Skyway [management],” he said.

Alternative route

Chan said policemen deployed near the TPLEx exit in Urdaneta would be suggesting to motorists heading to the Ilocos provinces to take the Binalonan-Laoac-Manaoag-San Jacinto-San Fabian route in Pangasinan and exit at Barangay Damortis in Sto. Tomas, La Union.

They may also use the route if they are passing through Marcos Highway on their way to Baguio, he said.

Those coming from Baguio may take the route from Damortis, exiting either in Urdaneta or Binalonan.

On Monday, Baguio Mayor Mauricio Domogan directed the police to coordinate with their counterparts in La Union and Pangasinan to help manage the flow of motorists to the summer capital for the rest of the holiday week.-Gabriel Cardinoza, Tonnette Orejas, Vincent Cabreza