Bridge, bridge, bridge

Being a nation of islands, the country must improve its capability to build bridges – not just technologically, but including the skill and knowledge on how to raise the needed funds to finance their construction.

We need better bridges. In Metro Manila alone, wider bridges crossing the Pasig River and its many tributaries are necessary to ease the movement of its more than 14 million residents, many of who have to cross the Pasig on a daily basis to accomplis their economic activities.

Currently, the 25.2-kilometer long Pasig River has 18 bridges, many of them only four lanes wide and located in densely populated areas, hence the cause of a conspicuous traffic build-up of both private and public vehicles during the morning and evening rush hours.

Even the Binondo-Intramuros Bridge, currently under construction and targeted to open to commuter traffic by the Holy Week, is only four lanes wide. The new bridge will be able to divert the use of around 30,000 vehicles in the Manila area, but will not be a guarantee that traffic problems will ease.

Building new bridges or widening existing ones in Metro Manila, especially when crossing Pasig River, presents some serious planning, especially in consideration of buildings that will be affected – but it can be done, and in less time.

Definitely, the story of the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, which links the two highly populated cities of Makati and Mandaluyong, serves as basis for lessons that can be applied in new undertakings. Originally as a two-lane box truss bridge, the Estrella-Pantaleon was widened to four lanes and re-opened to traffic last year.

Eastern urbanization

Planning for more bridges crossing Pasig River’s handful of tributaries should be started in earnest before the number of businesses and residents in the adjoining cities and municipalities increase to unmanageable levels.

A good start is the plan by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to construct three new bridges that will cross Marikina River to allow for additional alternative routes to support the increased urbanization of Marikina City and the towns outside the eastern borders of Metro Manila.

The new bridges will augment the existing river crossings already heavily used by commuters, although more attention should be given to future upgrades especially in areas where wider roads can be secured to avoid right-of-way problems.

Marikina River currently has 16 bridge spans, although many of them are still simple two-lane connectors. Marikina City is a major gateway by the bustling Rizal Province’s capital of Antipolo City and the Municipality of Cainta, the latter serving as the corridor of Taytay, Angono, Teresa, Binangonan, and Morong to NCR.

The eastern side of Metro Manila has been a source of workers who commute daily to and from commercial and business centers in the cities of Pasig, Quezon City, Mandaluyong, Taguig, and even Makati. The government is rushing the construction of an elevated train line to Antipolo City, but this will not be enough to support the increase in the number of day time workers in the metro.

Other urban centers outside of Luzon will, likewise, need to look at a rapid development of bridge networks, especially if their geographic features include major rivers crisscrossing the city or province. Bridges will continue to play a major role in the mobility of Filipinos in the future.

Inter-island links

So many more bridges need to be constructed in the country. This time, we’re talking about the big bridge projects that link vital islands (especially in the Visayas) to replace the use of ferries and boats to transport people and goods.

The early editions of the government’s Build, Build, Build program had been dubbed as ultra-ambitious with the inclusion of several inter-island bridge projects; most of them, however, have been removed from the original list for reasons of funding.

Instead, smaller projects – not necessarily bridges – had replaced the big-ticket bridge building items that would allow the national government to quickly raise the funds to complete them before the term of President Duterte ends in June this year.

Among the major bridge projects removed from the original list that would have made a significant impact on the economy was the proposed Sorsogon-Samar Bridge, which the completed feasibility study in 2019 called for some P300 billion in funding and a construction timetable of at least six years.

The bridge would have been the first concrete link between Luzon and the Visayas, and a replacement of the roll-on, roll-off ferries that cross the San Bernardino Strait connecting Allen Port in Samar and Matnog Port in Sorsogon. The ferry crossing is often hostage to weather disturbances, which are often, as well as port congestion during peak season.

Dream projects

Mobility through a network of bridges linking the seven largest islands in the Visayas has always been a dream, one that is expected to improve economic activity in the region. Crossing some of the widest straits in the islands has been more a financial challenge, though.

If things go well, the 32-kilometer Panay-Guimaras-Negros Bridge project will finally see some action after the KEXIM Bank-Economic Development Cooperation Fund committed financing for a detailed engineering design. Don’t hold your breath, though, because this is just the start of a long process before any actual cornerstone laying can happen.

Still, the Duterte administration is hopeful that succeeding governments will follow through with more bridge projects, especially when most of the other major “must do” infrastructure projects involving road building, ports construction or improvement, irrigation, and communications in the current BBB line-up will have been completed.

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