DPWH eyes April 21 deadline for P230-M Edsa reblocking project

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has given itself until April 21 to complete work on the remaining 30,000-square-meter area it needs to repair on Edsa.

This was disclosed to the Inquirer on Tuesday by Reynaldo Tagudando, head of the DPWH-National Capital Region, who said the agency’s personnel were planning to work in the next three weekends and the entire Holy Week to get the job done.

The DPWH has targeted for rehabilitation 80,000-square meters of Edsa under a P230 million concrete re-blocking project. So far, it has finished working on 50,000-sq-m.

“So far, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has approved our request to conduct piecemeal repairs during Holy Week. However, our planned road works in the next three weekends (March 28 to 30, April 4 to 6 and April 11 to 13) are still subject to MMDA approval,” Tagudando said.

He added that “continuous road works in those three weekends [were] necessary to ensure completion of the project.”

“We’re targeting 18,000 sq m of Edsa road space during the three weekends and finishing the remaining 12,000 sq m during Holy Week,” he told the Inquirer.

The Edsa concrete reblocking project which started last year was “part of the DPWH’s routine maintenance of the 23-kilometer long highway,” the country’s busiest thoroughfare.

Ed Santos, assistant chief of the DPWH-NCR’s maintenance division, explained that “reblocking calls for concreting the pavements. Next in the asset preservation phase is asphalting the road.”

Like Tagudando, he said the department was targeting the replacement of all damaged concrete pavements to ensure Edsa’s stability and boost its carrying capacity by using high-grade asphalt.

Santos expressed confidence that the MMDA would approve the DPWH’s request to conduct road repairs during the three succeeding weekends to “let us maximize our timetable and also allow us to meet our targets.”

He reported that “as of [yesterday,] only the reblocking of the northbound lanes of the Roxas Boulevard-Magallanes and the Balintawak-Monumento sections, as well as the southbound lanes of the North Avenue-Balintawak and Balintawak-Monumento sections, were 100 percent complete.”

The completion rates of the other road sections are as follows:

Northbound direction: Magallanes-Guadalupe, 13 percent; Guadalupe-Julia Vargas Avenue, 52.5 percent; Julia Vargas Ave.-V.V. Soliven, zero percent; V.V. Soliven-Quezon Avenue, 39 percent; Quezon Avenue-North Avenue, zero percent and North Avenue-Balintawak, 91 percent.

Southbound direction: Magallanes-Roxas Boulevard, 58 percent; Guadalupe-Magallanes, 19 percent; Julia Vargas Avenue-Guadalupe, 60 percent; V.V. Soliven-Julia Vargas Avenue, zero percent; Quezon Avenue-V.V. Soliven, 59 percent and North Avenue-Quezon Avenue, zero percent.

Meanwhile, DPWH top officials were set to meet yesterday on the much-delayed P3.74-billion Edsa rehabilitation program, originally scheduled to start last September and end in February 2015.