JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Duterte are expected to sign a bilateral loan commitment in November for the development of the first subway system in Metro Manila.
Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade said his group is finalizing all requirements of an official development assistance (ODA) loan commitment contract with Japan, just in time for the Asean summit, which the Japanese leader will attend in November.
“We have set a target that we should finalize the deal by the time Prime Minister Abe arrives at the Asean summit. It means that we should be finished with the feasibility study, the detailed engineering and design and the financial packages—everything,” he said in an interview at the sidelines of the Dutertenomics Forum on Tuesday.
The Mega Manila Subway System, which has a whopping P227-billion price tag, aims to connect Quezon City to Taguig through an underground mass- transportation system.
Expected to serve around 370,000 passengers daily, the 25-kilometer facility will have 12 stations, namely, Mindanao Avenue in Quirino Highway, North Avenue, Quezon Avenue, East Avenue, Anonas, Katipunan, Ortigas North, Ortigas South, Kalayaan Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Cayetano Boulevard and FTI.
Currently, the feasibility study for the project is being conducted with the help of a grant from the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Its conceptualization started in 2015.
“It is also important that we sign it this year, so we can have ample time to finish the project within the term of the President. It is a very ambitious project,” Tugade said.
Tugade assured that traffic obstruction caused by the construction of the facility will be very minimal. “I went to Tokyo and saw that when you construct underneath, there is not much obstruction on the surface. This is what they call tunneling system. I wouldn’t agree that quickly if I knew that traffic congestion would be too much because of this project,” he said.
1 comment
Nice! Keep it going 🙂