THE Department of Transportation (DOTr) signed on Wednesday a multibillion-peso contract to design and build a portion of the Unified Grand Central Station—otherwise known as the common station—with a Filipino consortium, signaling the start of its fourth-quarter 2020 target for the completion of the facility.
The contract was awarded to BF Corp.-Foresight Development and Surveying Co. Consortium, which will build Area A—the linkage between the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 and the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3—through October next year.
Divided into three components, the common station will serve as a connection among four railway lines, namely LRT 1, MRT 3, MRT 7 and the Subway System.
Area A will be funded by the government, while Area B—where the concourse will be built—is funded by Ayala Corp. Area C, where MRT 7 will be terminating, will be financed by San Miguel Corp., the concessionaire for the train line.
“With the common station, we will have interoperability, interconnectivity and intermodality,” Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade said. “It will be fully operational by the fourth quarter of 2020.”
The common station, Transportation Undersecretary Timothy John R. Batan said, will serve 1.2 million passengers per day.
“Once we have maxed out the capacity of the atrium, the parties are obligated to expand it at no cost to the government,” he said. “The concept for this is transfer proximity. Passengers will have about 35 seconds of walking time between Area A and Area C.”
The common station was in limbo for a couple of years after its conception, when the Supreme Court issued a stay order due to a possible breach in the contract.
SM Prime Holdings Inc. sued the previous transport department for changing the location of the common station even with an existing naming rights contract with the government. Former transport officials decided to move the location due to its cost benefits.
Tugade said SM has already “withdrawn its case” and has “allowed” the government to “keep the money to help fund the construction of the common station.”
When built, the common station will provide easy access to SM North and Trinoma and major roads, like Edsa, and will provide a common concourse or atrium to facilitate easy train-line transfer.