New road seen to ease traffic in Quezon town

LUCENA CITY—A new 7.5-kilometer road in Candelaria town is expected to be opened next month and ease traffic on Maharlika Highway, one of Quezon’s busiest roads, according to public works officials.

Celestial Flancia, public works district engineer, said the Department of Public Works and Highways is now completing the approaches to two bridges to finish these in time for the opening of the bypass road in late July.

Traffic became horrendous in Candelaria because of the growing number of motorcycles being used as public utility vehicles that delays travel time by an average of 30 minutes.

Flancia said another major road project in central Quezon—the 29.7-km ecotourism road from Lucena City to

Sariaya town—would be finished in two years.

Rodel Matias, a farmer from Barangay Castañas in Sariaya, said people in his village have long been using finished portions of the highway in going to the town proper.

“It’s a smooth and faster drive. We never dreamed that a highway will reach our village,” he said.

The new highway seeks to boost tourism in Sariaya, considered one of the major tourist destinations in southern Luzon.

It serves as an alternate route to Maharlika Highway and a direct link to the international port in Batangas City.

The ecotourism road project, which has five bridges, was started in 2006 and was supposed to be completed last year.

However, delays in right-of-way payments and shortage in materials due to a suspension of quarrying in Sariaya delayed the project.

Flancia also appealed to

Lucena residents to voluntarily remove structures that stand in the way of a road-widening project that would start next year.

Houses, stores and electric posts are on the route of the road-widening project which covers five kilometers, said Flancia.

Flancia said the government would not pay damages to owners of structures that are in the way of the project and would have to be removed because these structures “have been encroaching on government property.”