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MANILA, Philippines – The country’s largest business organization, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), is seeking approval by the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) for the early implementation of an elevated road that that would link the Port of Manila to the Skyway to ease road congestion.
PCCI president Alfredo Yao said that this would give 24/7 access to trucks and other vehicles travelling along the stretch of North Boulevard and R-10 to the Skyway Stage 3.
This, he said, would ease port congestion at the Port of Manila and help spare consumers, exporters and importers from the high costs of deliveries.
The P26-billion ($576.6 million) Skyway stage 3, a public-private partnership (PPP) project being implemented by San Miguel Corporation in partnership with Citra Group of Indonesia, started construction on February 17.
When completed in 2017, it would link the North and South Luzon expressways from Buendia in Makati to Balintawak in Caloocan City.
Letter to the Toll Regulatory Board
“Our membership is concerned over the repeat of the port congestion last 2014 – resulting in business losses amounting to P70 billion (P1.55 billion) – if no new road infrastructures are put in place in the medium term,” said Yao in a letter on July 9 to Edmundo Reyes, Jr., executive director of the TRB.
“From our point of view, the so-called port congestion is only the result of the real problem of road congestion,” he added.
Yao said almost half of the number of delivery trucks coming from the Port of Manila would use the proposed elevated link to the Skyway Stage 3 and benefit from the drastically reduced travel times to their destinations outside Metro Manila.
“Continuity of business is key to PCCI,” he wrote.
“By accelerating the movement of raw materials and finished goods to and from the ports, we are certain that this proposed project would increase productivity and propel the growth of our economy.”
Traffic volume, meanwhile, at the ground streets of Metro Manila even during non-truck ban hours would also be cut by almost half, he added.
The traffic in Metro Manila costs the economy an estimated P2.4 billion ($53.2 million) a day as estimated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) last year. – Rappler.com
$1 = P 45.09
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