TRANSPORTATION Secretary Giovanni Lopez said the Service Contracting program may be expanded further, but it would need an additional P5 billion. ‘We have already requested additional funding from the President, from the Department of Budget and Management, and from our economic managers, and I am confident that the additional funding will be granted,’ he said.
PHOTOGRAPH courtesy of philippine news agency
The Metro Manila Subway Project achieved a major construction milestone after a tunnel boring machine completed the southbound connection between the North Avenue and Quezon Avenue stations, officials announced Wednesday.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez inspected the breakthrough site, located 35 meters underground, which forms part of Contract Package 102 covering the Quezon Avenue, East Avenue, and North Avenue station links.
“You can see that our Subway Project is slowly taking shape,” Marcos said. “Once this is finished, those who live here will be very fortunate because they will have a subway, they will have the MRT, they will have many routes.”
The Department of Transportation (DoTr) views the 33-kilometer underground railway as a crucial strategy to shift commuters away from private road transport and ease chronic congestion across Greater Manila.
“The DoTr still believes that one of the real solutions to solve traffic, the really severe traffic, is what we call the mass public transportation system, and the best mass public transportation system is our railways,” Lopez said.
The 17-station system, financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, will link with existing and upcoming networks, including LRT-1, LRT-2, MRT-3, MRT-7, and the North-South Commuter Railway.
Once operational, the subway is expected to reduce travel time between Valenzuela City and Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 from 90 minutes to 41 minutes, serving an estimated 519,000 daily passengers in its initial year.
