FOR an archipelago like the Philippines, connectivity is crucial to spur trade and economic growth among the thousands of islands in the country, and the government believes that developing and rehabilitating bridges is crucial to achieving this goal.
Bridges are so crucial for this administration that it is spending over P2 trillion to build new and retrofit old bridges across the three main islands of the country.
Since the new government assumed power, it has set its sights on the rehabilitation of old bridges to improve traffic flow and promote greater linkages among cities and islands.
There are about over 8,000 bridges across the Philippines, according to documents from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and as of 2015, at least 36 percent are in good condition, 44 percent are considered fair, 13 percent are deemed poor, and about 5 percent are in a bad state.
The bridges in poor to bad condition are the bridges that require rehabilitation, strengthening, retrofitting or replacement.
Public Works Secretary Mark A. Villar said that, to date, his group has completed 2,709 bridge projects since 2016. Of these, 462 were widened, 108 were constructed, 1,642 were strengthened, 155 were replaced, and 342 local ones were built.
These include the Lucban Bridge in Cagayan, the Marcos Bridge in Marikina, the Sicapo Bridge in Ilocos Norte, the Pigalo Bridge in Isabela, the Anduyan Bridge in La Union, the Tallang Bridge in Cagayan, the Bolo-Bolo Bridge in Misamis Oriental, the Caguray Bridge in Occidental Mindoro, the Tinongdan Bridge in Benguet, the Pasac-Culcul in Pampanga, the Aganan Bridge in Iloilo, the Maddiangat Bridge in Nueva Vizcaya, and the Pigalo Bridge in Isabela.
Villar noted that his department uses the Road and Bridge Information Application (RBIA) to determine the bridges that needed to be rehabilitated and retrofitted.
“It has been implemented throughout the department to enable road and bridge inventory and to condition data to be updated by the regional planning and design division,” he said. “All regional offices are tasked to conduct regular bridge inspection and submit data findings to the planning service through the RBIA system.”
He explained that retrofitting can be categorized into two: seismic and non-seismic.
For seismic retrofitting, the agency implements the seismic vulnerability rating of bridges—here, bridges are chosen and prioritized according to their vulnerability to earthquake, seismic hazard, and bridge importance. The higher the seismic rating score, the greater the need for the bridge to be evaluated for seismic retrofitting.
In early November, days after three big earthquakes shook Mindanao, talk of the “Big One,” the imminence of a catastrophic earthquake hitting the Philippines, prompted the DPWH to speed up plans strengthen the bridges—starting with Guadalupe Bridge in Mandaluyong—in the Philippines to withstand quakes of up to magnitude 8.
At that time, Villar said his group has created a rehabilitation plan for Guadalupe Bridge—a critical portion of Edsa that connects the cities of Makati and Mandaluyong—to prepare it for the so-called Big One.
“There’s a need to rehabilitate Guadalupe Bridge given the possibility of the Big One happening in Metro Manila. Now we realized that there is concern in the traffic, so when we made the plans for the rehabilitation, part of the plan is to construct service lanes on each side,” he said during the BusinessMirror Coffee Club.
He said the service roads will ensure that traffic will continue to flow while the bridge undergoes rehab.
“There’s no scenario where we will close Guadalupe Bridge. Guadalupe is really critical, but we understand that closing Guadalupe will cause armageddon. It really needs to be done and we have to do it soon,” Villar said.
Once completed, Guadalupe Bridge, he said, will be able to endure quakes of huge magnitudes.
To mitigate the traffic congestion that the rehab program may cause, Villar said his group is banking on the completion of two other bridges that connect the cities of Makati and Mandaluyong.
“We’re trying to push toward the end of next year, we’ll also finish the two bridges crossing Pasig River, which are Estrella-Pantaleon and Santa Monica-Lawton, so that they will also minimize the effect when we rehab Guadalupe,” he said.
The Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge connects Mandaluyong and Makati through a two-lane truss structure that crosses the Pasig River. The existing bridge is currently being replaced by pre-stressed concrete rigid frame bridge with corrugated steel webs with a four-lane concrete deck slab of approximately 506.46 lineal meters.
On the other hand, the Santa Monica-Lawton Bridge is a 613.77-meter, four-lane bridge across Pasig River connecting Lawton Avenue in Makati City and Santa Monica Street in Pasig City.
Meanwhile, the DPWH also conducts regular monitoring and maintenance of its bridges which can be due for non-seismic retrofitting.
“Retrofitting of the bridge may eventually lead to increased vehicle capacity and safety of the motorists and lessens the vulnerability of the infrastructure to various disasters,” Villar said.
Quezon, Ayala bridges
He cited the decades-old Quezon Bridge, as well as the Ayala Bridge, as examples of bridges that were in dire need of retrofitting.
“We’ve retrofitted the 1939 Quezon Bridge connecting Quiapo and Ermita across the Pasig River. This increased the traffic load of the bridge from just 10 tons per vehicle to 20 tons per vehicle and ensured the safety of 115,000 motorists per day. We’ve also retrofitted the Ayala Bridge in Manila, the Diosdado Macapagal Bridge in Butuan, the Bamban Bridge in Tarlac, among others,” he said.
In addition to the 26 existing bridges crossing Pasig River, Marikina River and Manggahan Floodway, which cater to about 1.3 million vehicles daily, 12 new bridges in the area will be constructed to provide alternative linkages between major thoroughfares and increase the number of usable roadways that would decongest traffic on Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (Edsa) and other major roads in Metro Manila.
Per the DPWH list, included in the Metro Manila Logistics Infrastructure Network are six bridges crossing Pasig River, four bridges crossing Marikina River, and two bridges crossing Manggahan Floodway, including: North and South Harbor Bridge, Binondo-Intramuros Bridge, 2nd Ayala Bridge (Carlos Palanca-San Marcelino), Beata-F.Y. Manalo Bridge (Pandacan-Santa Ana), F. Blumentritt-Antipolo Bridge, Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, Kabayani-Katipunan Bridge, Reposo-Guatemala Bridge, J.P. Rizal-Yale Bridge, G. Gabriel Street-Mercury Avenue Bridge, and East Bank-West Bank Bridge 1 and 2.
The 961-meter Bonifacio Global City-Ortigas Center Link Road Project involves the construction of a four-lane Santa Monica to Lawton Bridge across Pasig River connecting Lawton Avenue in Makati City and Santa Monica Street in Pasig City and a viaduct structure traversing Lawton Avenue onward to the entrance of Bonifacio Global City. Once completed by March 2020, traveling between the central business districts of Taguig and Pasig cities will only take 12 minutes and traffic congestion at Edsa and C-5 Road, particularly along Guadalupe Bridge and Bagong Ilog Bridge, will be alleviated by about 25 percent.
The Binondo-Intramuros Bridge, spanning 807 meters, is a P4.6-billion four-lane, steel bowstring arch bridge project, which is expected to connect Intramuros at Solana Street and Riverside Drive and Binondo at San Fernando Street.The Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, a P1.37-billion project, will replace the existing bridge with a four-lane twin-spine steel box girder bridge, spanning 560 meters, to connect Estrella Street in Makati to Barangka Drive in Mandaluyong.
But while the government retrofits and rehabilitates existing bridges, it is also developing new ones to ensure that the different cities and provinces in the Philippines are interconnected.
Villar said the government believes that inter-island connectivity is also critical to lessen the costs of moving people and goods. Improving mobility spurs greater trade and attracts investments from both local and foreign groups alike.
“We also envision a more connected Philippines under our Inter-island Linkage or Mega Bridge Program. We are building a series of short- and long-span bridges linking island provinces to eventually connect Mindanao and Visayas to Luzon via land travel,” he said.
Mixed funding
The program, a moving P1.7-trillion plan, involves the construction of 17 short- and long-span bridges with a total length of 175,650 meters and investment cost. This will be funded through a mix of foreign loans and aids, public-private partnerships, and general government budget.
The first project under the masterplan is the Panguil Bay Bridge. It is a 3.7-km bridge connecting Tangub City in Misamis Occidental and Tubod in Lanao del Norte, and will start construction within the year.
Once completed in 2021, travel time between Tangub and Tubod will be reduced from 2.5 hours to only 10 minutes. It will also shorten travel time between Ozamiz City in Misamis Occidental and Mukas, Kolambugan, in Lanao del Norte from 2.5 hours to only 20 minutes.
The detailed engineering design of the Guicam Bridge in Zamboanga Sibugay, and three bridges in Tawi-Tawi—Nalil-Sikkiat Bridge, Tongsinah-Paniongan Bridge and Malassa-Lupa Pula Bridge—are also included in the Improving Growth Corridors in Mindanao Road Sector Project.
Likewise, feasibility study for the 19-km Panay-Guimaras-Negros Link Bridge will also be completed within the year.
Villar said bridges are crucial to develop the Philippine transport industry, as they are key to improving mobility, while helping promote interconnectivity among different cities and provinces.
Aside from spurring economic growth, bridges are seen to help erase a portion of the P3.5-billion daily productivity loss due to traffic congestion, he added, noting that these initiatives are part of the Build, Build, Build Program of the Duterte government.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes