Govt steps in on NLEX-SLEX connector road issue

The government has decided to interject between the two proponents in the North Luzon expressway and South Luzon expressway connector roads project after they failed to come up with a unified proposal on the common area. “They just couldn’t agree so the government will come in and decide for the group. They will follow what the government will decide,” said Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya in an interview Tuesday. At present, the government is still studying schemes that would cover the common area of the proposed connector roads, Abaya said. The roads will be constructed by the unit of diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and First Pacific’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC). The government has given SMC’s Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp. and MPIC until December 15 to come up with a unified proposal on the common area. Under Citra's proposal, the company would initially fund the construction of the common area using a consensual contractor. Once the road connects, the other proponent would have to pay half of the total cost. Under the proposal, the proponents of both connector roads would initially split 50-50 of the total revenues, but on the third year once the traffic have stabilized the share of the revenues would depend on the traffic. The other MPIC proposal calls for a 50-50 share in the total cost of construction of the common area as well as a 50-50 split in revenues regardless of traffic volume.   Abaya said there will be a decision on the scheme that would be used before Christmas. “We will make sure that the connection on the common alignment will not be prejudicial to anybody,” he said.  The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) wants the construction of the connector roads to start early next year so that the infrastructure would be completed in time for the Leaders Meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which the Philippines will be hosting in 2015. Both MPTC and Citra should have a common area spanning five kilometers from Quirino in Manila up to Nagtahan in Sta. Mesa in Manila crossing the Pasig River. President Benigno Aquino III has decided to let both MPTC and SMC to build their own connector roads to be completed by 2015. The road projects would connect Makati City where the SLEX ends to Caloocan and Balintawak where NLEX starts. The project cost is placed at P45 billion. Linking NLEx and SLEx has been in the pipeline since 2010, when MPTC submitted an unsolicited proposal to build a 13.4-kilometer, four-lane elevated road connecting the two over the railway from Makati to Caloocan. Citra and MPTC met several times to resolve the issue pertaining to the Buendia to Sta. Mesa Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) segment of Citra’s Skyway Stage 3 to which the MPTC’s Connector Road would connect.   Citra would allow MPIC’s Connector Road to connect to the Skyway Stage 3 at the Sta. Mesa PUP area even if MPIC acknowledged and stated that it does not want to jeopardize Citra-Philippine National Construction Corp’s right over the Buendia to Sta. Mesa PUP segment which is part of the original alignment of the Skyway project approved by the government in 1995.    Since the Skyway Stage 3 is an extension of the already existing Skyway Stages 1 and 2, Citra would start construction at the Buendia-end of Skyway Stage1. — KBK, GMA News