Atienza supports plan for EDSA subway

MANILA, Philippines - A lawmaker supported yesterday a plan to build a subway under EDSA as part of a long-lasting solution to Metro Manila’s problem of growing road congestion.

“We absolutely need an underground train system long-term. In the years ahead, there’s simply no way we can efficiently move large numbers of people around the national capital without a subway,” Rep. Lito Atienza of party-list group Buhay said.

“Right now, we can no longer widen our roads. So we have only two options left – to construct new mass transport systems up in the air, which we are already doing with the additional elevated trains, or to burrow underground and create subways,” he said.

He said he had counted on the previous administration to firm up the blueprint for a Metro subway.

“But they failed to plan ahead. This time, under President Duterte, we are hoping transport engineers finally will get things done,” he added.

The plan is to build the subway under the 23.8-kilometer EDSA, where the government is operating the Metro Rail Transit 3 system.

Atienza said a Metro subway could be built in phases, just like the elevated trains.

“But we have to start somewhere,” he said.

Besides the EDSA subway, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has preliminary plans to put together a 12-kilometer underground loop around Makati City, Pasay City and Taguig City – estimated to cost some P375 billion.

DOT Secretary Arthur Tugade is also planning to build cable cars.

Another alternative, Atienza said, is to construct a dual-purpose tunnel along EDSA patterned after Malaysia’s Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART).

“The advantage of a Malaysian-type SMART tunnel is that it would help us fight both road congestion and flash flooding at the same time,” he said.

He said the two-channel tunnel serves as a motorway for light vehicles under normal conditions and as a floodway during extreme rainstorms.