Traffic on NLEx remains heavy, says tollway official

MANILA, Philippines—Traffic remained heavy as of early afternoon Thursday in several areas along the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx), still due to the large number of vehicles taking the tollway, an NLEx traffic official said.

In a phone interview around 1:50 p.m., Liezel Uy said traffic at Dau Toll Plaza and Mindanao Avenue entry points remained heavy, with 20 to 25 vehicles filling each of the nine lanes of Dau and eight lanes of the Mindanao Avenue.

“Traffic is still moving in Mindanao but at a slow pace,” she said, adding that the backlog was being caused by the volume of vehicles, and also because vehicles must stop for a while to pay the toll fee.

In a separate interview with another NLEx traffic official earlier Thursday, the heavy traffic along NLEx was said to have started since Wednesday evening.

Traffic at the Balintawak Toll Plaza, however, was “better” as of 1:35 p.m., Uy said.

She said there were just around 10 vehicles on each of the 17 lanes of the tollway.

She said ambulant tellers had been deployed since 6 a.m. to ease the traffic backlog in problem areas.

No vehicular accidents have been recorded so far, except for minor ones that had all been cleared immediately after, Uy said.