Infra projects, more trains to ease EDSA traffic — Villar

MANILA, Philippines — The Duterte administration’s infrastructure projects and more trains plying Metro Manila’s elevated railways would decongest EDSA, according to Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar.

Villar told The Chiefs, aired over Cignal TV’s One News channel on Thursday night, that the administration’s target is to reduce the number of vehicles traversing EDSA each day to 200,000 to 250,000.

Duterte, “from day one, conceptualized a plan to decongest EDSA and we have been executing the plan for the past two or three years,” he said.

Villar said critics do not realize that “any kind of solution” to EDSA’s traffic woes will take years.

He said President Duterte first ordered them to determine the number of vehicles going through EDSA each day, which is approximately 380,000 to 400,000.

Since widening EDSA is impossible, Villar said “the next best thing” was to bypass the metropolis’ main road with the Skyway Extension project and the connector road that would link South Luzon and North Luzon Expressways.

The Skyway Extension will relieve EDSA of 20,000 cars and the connector road 50,000 cars, according to Villar.

He also cited the construction and rehabilitation of the Sta. Monica-Lawton and Estrella-Pantaleon bridges, each of which would relieve EDSA of 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles, as well as the construction of C-6 Road.

Villar said railways are being constructed and trains are being added to existing railways “because in the long term, the ultimate solution to traffic is mass transit.”