THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) announced its personnel are speeding up the development of the Davao City Bypass Construction Project, reporting that the contractor now conducts simultaneous tunneling activities at northbound and southbound directions on north portal of the project’s road mountain tunnel component.
Public Works Undersecretary Emil K. Sadain said the simultaneous works for the northbound and southbound directions “will ramp-up project progress to catch-up on the late arrivals of special equipment and/or machineries and Japanese experts due to movement restrictions and delayed issuance of travel permits because of the pandemic.”
A part of the “Build, Build, Build” program, the road aims to reduce congestion in Davao City and cut travel time between Toril, Davao City and JP Laurel, Panabo City to 49 minutes from the current 1 hour and 44 minutes.
“It is expected that the start-up of excavation work at the northbound direction of the north portal will significantly speed up project delivery,” Sadain said.
Construction of the soundbound direction started in November last year.
The group of Shimizu-Ulticon-Takenaka is undertaking the construction of Contract Package (CP) I-1, which covers 10.7 kilometers of four-lane highway and a 2.3-kilometer tunnel that has a diameter of 10 meters.
The entire 45.5-kilometer bypass road is divided into six packages: CP I-1 (10.7 km), CP I-2 (12.8 km), CP I-3 (6.1 km), CP II-1 (2.7 km), CP II-2 (3.5 km), and CP II-3 (9.7 km).
The project is funded through a loan program from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.