Antonio C. Abaya - Tunnel under Roxas

Donâ€™t look now but there is a proposal from the Department of Public Works
and Highways.

(DPWH) to build a highway tunnel *under *Roxas Boulevard, starting from the
intersection with the MIA Road up to the intersection with P. Burgos St. in
the Luneta.

And then it gets worse. The proposed tunnel makes a hard-right turn, past
the old Legislative Building, past the Manila City Hall, past Liwasang
Bonifacio, across the Pasig River and heads due north to Valenzuela,
presumably *under *Rizal Avenue, past the Bonifacio Monument,* under* a
portion of the MacArthur Highway, past Malabon, to connect with the North
Luzon Expressway.

The proposed tunnel highway, called the Metro Manila Tunnel Expressway or
MMTEX, is expected to cost P35 billion and take five years to build. The
first portion will run 8 kms from the MIA Road to P. Burgos St and cost an
estimated P9.9 billion. The second portion will run 20 kms from P. Burgos
St. to Valenzuela, presumably *under* Rizal Ave, and will cost an estimated
P25 billion.

Tunneling under Rizal Avenue runs the risk of weakening the columns of
LRT-1. Thus the DPWH would have to put their highway tunnel away from the
midpoint of Rizal Avenue and expropriate mid-rise commercial buildings
fronting the avenue, a very expensive proposition.

If they elect to use instead the narrower parallel streets, they would still
have to expropriate private property in prime commercial real estate areas,
still a very expensive proposition.

The rationale for this mega-project is a) to reduce travel time from the
Luneta to the Coastal Road from one hour to 10 to 15 minutes; and b) to
speed up traffic between the North and South sides of Metro Manila.

But this is the most asinine solution to both problems. It is on instances
like this that I wonder where we Filipinos were when God was distributing
brains.

Does the DPWH have any idea of the mammoth dislocation of hundreds of
thousands of motor vehicles that building this 28 kms of tunnel, *under *two
of the busiest arteries in the metro area, Roxas Boulevard and Rizal Avenue,
will cause?

Furthermore, building a tunnel *under *Roxas Blvd, right next to the waters
of Manila Bay, will flood the excavation sites 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, causing unforeseen delays and additional engineering problems.

In addition, the streets parallel to Roxas Blvd. (M. H. del Pilar, Mabini
and Taft) are already clogged with traffic on a daily basis. Diverting motor
vehicles from Roxas Blvd. into these parallel arteries, while the tunnel is
being built, would cause north-south traffic to grind to a halt, racking up
incalculable economic costs in lost man-hours in offices, factories and
shops, and lost class hours in the many public schools, colleges and
universities in the area.

This tunnel is also a totally unnecessary exercise in masochism. When I was
writing a column for the *Philippine Star *(up to Nov. 1997), I wrote
several columns proposing that Roxas Blvd be turned into a non-stop
expressway so that one can drive from the Luneta to the Cavite border â€œin 15
minutesâ€, exactly the same justification DPWH Secretary Ebdane uses to
justify his humongous tunnel.

This can be accomplished, I wrote in the 1990s, by building three
interchanges: at the intersections of Pedro Gil St.. (formerly Herran),
President Quirino Avenue (formerly Harrison) and the MIA Road, with the
necessary loops on land reclaimed from the Bay. All left-turn traffic must
be banned except through these loops.

The present front entrance of the US Embassy, for example, would no longer
be accessible from the northbound lanes of Roxas Blvd, only from the
southbound lanes, in addition to a possible new entrance from the proposed
Pedro Gil interchange.

My proposed interchange at President Quirino Ave, with a loop built next to
the basin of the Manila Yacht Club, would accommodate left-turn traffic from
the southbound lanes of Roxas as well as left-turn traffic from President
Quirino heading for Cavite and other points south.

The interchange at the MIA Road, with loops on the reclaimed land (where the
Coastal Mall is presently located) will accommodate all cross- and left-turn
traffic at the intersection.

With these three interchanges and their loops, all cross- and left-turn
traffic would be eliminated and north-south traffic would move freely,
without a single traffic light and without a single traffic policeman, and
at a much lower cost than Sec. Ebdaneâ€™s stratospheric P9.9 billion.

As for connecting the north and south sides of Metro Manila, this can also
be accomplished without digging a single meter of tunnel anywhere, merely by
accelerating the construction of C-5, *which had been designed to connect
the North Luzon Expressway and the South Luzon Expressway in the first
place.

When C-5 was being built in 1995, I wrote in my column in the *Philippine
Star *that it should be a non-stop expressway, by eliminating all cross- and
left-turn traffic with interchanges and loops . In the 14 years since, the
Rosario overpass and the Santolan underpass and the Kalayaan U-turn
overpasses were built, but much remains to be done.

MMDA chair Bayani Fernandoâ€™s U-turn slots for vehicles on C-5 turning into
Julia Vargas Ave. and Lanuza Ave. would have been unnecessary if then DPWH
Secretary Gregorio Vigilar had followed my suggestion that the C-5 skyway
past the Pasig River be extended by about 100 meters.

This would have allowed vehicles on C-5 headed for the Ortigas Center to
exit to ground level and use a cross street â€“ Canley Road â€“ *under* the
extended skyway, without disrupting through traffic.

The MMDA chair at that time, Peng Oreta, told me that in a Cabinet meeting,
President Ramos told Sec. Vigilar to â€œfollow Tony Abayaâ€™s suggestion.â€ But
the hardheaded Vigilar did not follow Tony Abayaâ€™s suggestion. So vehicles
left-turning into Lanuza and Julio Vargas avenues built up over the years,
disrupting traffic flow and forcing current MMDA Chair Fernando to put up
his unsightly and unsafe, but necessary â€“ U-turn slots.

Left-turn and U-turn traffic on the Libis-Eastwood portion of C-5 are the
main causes of traffic congestion in the area. This could have been avoided
if land (for left-turn overpasses) had been expropriated years ago, before
development raised real estate values. But it is still possible to create
left-turn overpasses on limited road space by using the cork-screw
configuration, which has a much smaller footprint than the normal designs.

I was in the Katipunan-UP-Tandang Sora area last weekend to attend a wedding
reception in Sanville subdivision. It was gratifying to see that the
widening and concreting of Katipunan-Tandang Sora artery has reached past
the UP campus.

But an interchange at the intersection of Katipunan and the very first road
into UP Diliman, past Miriam College, which I first suggested in 1995,
remains a phantom. This interchange would have relieved much of the
congestion on Katipunan, in front of Miriam and Ateneo.

But at least two left-turn overpasses, perhaps of the cork-screw
configuration, are needed to accommodate vehicles entering and exiting the
Ateneo and Miriam campuses. These overpasses and interchanges would allow
through traffic to flow unimpeded, at least up to the last entry/exit of UP
Diliman.

From this point on, Katipunan-Tandang Sora (which are components of C-5)
would have to go up to an elevated carriageway. The existing roadway is too
narrow. Expropriating the nearby properties would be expensive. At any rate,
C-5 has to cross the overpass on Don Mariano Marcos Ave. (formerly
Congressional Ave), and it can do so only *above *it, not *under *it.

It would be best for C-5 to remain a skyway all the way to Novaliches and
the North Luzon Expressway because the areas that it traverses are already
heavily built up and expropriating the properties would be very expensive.

At any rate, building all these interchanges, overpasses and skyway, to make
C-5 a non-stop expressway â€“ connecting the NLEX and the SLEX - would take
much less time, cause much less traffic disruption and cost much less than
the P25 billion earmarked for the hare-brained tunnel idea that the geniuses
at the DPWH are fantasizing about.

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TONY on YouTube

*Interview with Harry Tambuatco on July 9, 2009 on Ronnie Puno, Gilbert
Teodoro, Loren Legarda, Chiz Escudero, Richard Gordon, political dynasties,
surveys, political advertising, Ang Kapatiran, Gov. Among Ed Panlilio, Bro.
Eddie Villanueva, priests and pastors in politics.,The interview can be
watched at the following URLs:

part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZrkqgZ8wTA
part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtzSUC3FRw0
part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-oNs5cVEDI
part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDJWJtzEggM