MPTC, CMMTC face Dec. 18 deadline for NLEX-SLEX connector proposal

The government has given Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. (MPTC) and Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. (CMMTC) until Dec. 18 to come up with a unified proposal for the planned connector road between the North Luzon Expressway and the South Luzon Expressway. According to MPTC president Ramoncito Fernandez on the sidelines of the Economic Forum 2012 organized by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP), the proposed connector road was approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) on Nov. 8. However, Fernandez said, the approval was contingent on MPTC and CMMTC’s agreeing upon a common area for the road. So far, the companies have agreed that the common area will span five kilometers from Quirino in Manila up to Nagtahan in Sta. Mesa in Manila, crossing the Pasig River. The P45-billion road project would connect Makati City, where the SLEX ends, to Caloocan and Balintawak, where NLEX starts. Linking the two expressways has been in the pipeline since MPTC submitted an proposal to build a 13.4-kilometer, four-lane elevated road connecting the two over the railway from Makati to Caloocan in 2010. MPTC operates the 83.7-kilometer NLEX, while CMMTC jointly operates the 60-km SLEX. Meanwhile, Fernandez said the Manila North Tollways Corp. (MNTC) improved its offer to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) to operate the 94-kilometer Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX). The MNTC is a subsidiary of MPTC, which is in turn a subsidiary of Metro Pacific Investment Corporation (MPIC), raising the concession fees and revenue share of the government to P90 billion over a 30-year period from P64.4 billion The improved offer was based on the calculation that vehicular traffic along the expressway would generate as much as P278 billion during the 30-year period. MNTC also said it would invest P20 billion in SCTEX until 2043 for road improvements and facilities until 2043. — BM, GMA News